Pipeline News May 2009 by Pipeline News

PIPELINE NEWS Saskatchewanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Petroleum Monthly

May 2009

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Volume 1 Issue 12

Focus Edition

Research & Development

Nobel Prize co-recipient, Malcolm Wilson, heads up the petroleum research centre at the University of Regina. See story on Page C25. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

Bruce Power Introduces Nuclear Energy Page A8

U of R Carbon Capture Page B1

Curling Coverage Lloydminster - A10 Swift Current - B9 Estevan - C8

SEE YOU AT THE WEYBURN OIL SHOW IN JUNE

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Nuclear power holds News

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Notes

The reaction that produces the hydrogen from methane is called the water/gas shift reaction. If you can eliminate that out of your processing stream, you automatically cut your carbon footprint in half - Dr. Bill Rogers

SaskEnergy rate decrease approved The provincial government in March approved a 21 per cent decrease for SaskEnergy’s rate for natural gas eﬀective April 1, 2009. This change results in savings of approximately $23 per month for the typical residential customer. In February, SaskEnergy applied to the Saskatchewan Rate Review Panel (SRRP) for a commodity rate decrease to $6.23/Gigajoule (GJ) from its current rate, based on its projected natural gas costs over the next 12 months. In early March, due to changing market conditions, the panel requested that SaskEnergy provide a market update to its rate application, which resulted in a revised commodity rate of $5.96/GJ. The SRRP reviewed the revised proposal and then recommended that decrease to the Government of Saskatchewan.

Toronto Star talks up Weyburn CO2 CCS On April 14, the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper, took notice of the boom Weyburn has been experiencing, related to both the local carbondioxide sequestration storage project and the Bakken oil ﬁeld. The story can be found at www.thestar.com/ article/617907.

Mooncor announces $1.3 million ¿nancing Mooncor Oil & Gas Corp. says it intends to complete a non-brokered private placement ﬁnancing pursuant to which it proposes to raise gross proceeds of up to $1.3 million through the issuance of common share units at a price of 20 cents per unit. The net proceeds will be used by Mooncor for exploration on its oil and gas properties, working capital and property acquisitions.

Williston Basin Conference The Williston Basin Conference took place in Regina April 26-28. There will be extensive coverage in the June edition of Pipeline News.

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By Geoﬀ Lee Pipeline News

For his part, Dr. Rogers said the agreement with Saskatchewan “is very important to Idaho National Laboratory because it expands our collaborative reIdaho Falls, Idaho–Nuclear power could hold the lationships on western regional energy interests and key to unlocking the oilsands and boosting heavy oil concerns. “This agreement also permits us to contribute inproduction while cutting carbon emissions. That’s the opinion of Dr. Bill Rogers, associ- dependent validation of technologies and approaches ate lab director for energy and environment at the to advance energy development for Saskatchewan.” The INL lab has built and decommissioned Idaho National Laboratory (INL) that has signed energy research agreements with Alberta and Sas- more than 50 test nuclear plants for the commercial energy market and the U.S. Navy. katchewan. Dr. Rogers says INL’s expertise leads him to The INL is a research wing of the U.S. Department of Energy that Dr. Rogers says aims to help conclude that nuclear energy is a way oil companies the U.S. gain its energy security by reviving nuclear can make hydrogen without going through a carbon power generation and researching and test market- cycle. “When you develop the oilsands or heavy oil, the ing renewable forms of energy. “What we are trying to do is establish stronger upgrading requires hydrogen,” he said. “Now – we’re relationship with our partners to the north in Al- obtaining hydrogen by burning natural gas – steam reformation of methane. That’s a bad use of methane berta and Saskatchewan,” he said. “We started oﬀ a year ago by signing a Memo- which is a high-value fuel for heating our homes.” Dr. Rogers says the problem of using methane randum of Understanding (MOU) with the Alberta Research Council to work on such things as pro- to produce hydrogen, which is also used to upgrade viding our nuclear expertise on how nuclear power petrochemicals, is that every equivalent measure of hydrogen produced from the steam reformation of might be used to produce the oilsands.” INL’s agreement with Saskatchewan reached in methane produces an equivalent amount of C02. “If you take high temperature heat from a nuMarch covers planned research and demonstration projects on a variety of energy fronts including ura- clear power plant and use it to produce hydrogen by nium, nuclear power, heavy oil, oil shale and oilsands splitting water by high temperature electrolysis, you in addition to joint collaboration of carbon dioxide get the same product without forming any C02,” he explained. capture and storage projects. “So it could be very valuable to the oil indus“Saskatchewan has a diversity of energy resources few other places in the world can match, and also try not only in the production of petrochemicals, say has a solid, acclaimed record on energy research,” oilsands, but in the upgrading of those once you get them either from oilsands or from heavy oil.” said Energy Resources Minister Bill Boyd. Bruce Power is scouting sites in Prince Albert, “As we expand that research and move into other areas of value-added energy development, it just North Battleford and Lloydminster for a proposed makes good sense to form partnerships with energy 1,000 megawatt nuclear power facility for the year research leaders like INL and beneﬁt from their ex- 2020. ɸ Page A3 pertise and analysis.”

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promise for oilsands ɺ Page A2 Although much of the power generation talk has focused on the electrical output of the proposed facility, Dr. Rogers says the heavy oil sector is beginning to ask about the added-value use of heat generated by nuclear. “At INL we’re doing research on fourth generation nuclear concepts,” he said. “The scheme that we are after is called a high temperature gas reactor. In addition to electricity, it produces very high temperature heat which is extremely valuable to a chemical engineer. “The reaction that produces the hydrogen from methane is called the water/gas shift reaction. If you can eliminate that out of your processing stream, you automatically cut your carbon footprint in half.” INL’s MOU with Saskatchewan could also enhance research into heavy oil recovery technologies at the Petroleum Technology Research Centre in Regina that Dr. Rogers visited during the signing tour. “Heavy oil, by their deﬁnition, is you drill a well and the oil doesn’t ﬂow to the wellhead,” he said. “They have to induce it to do that somehow.” Dr. Rogers says hydrogen or high temperature from new INL test reactors could provide the in-

ducement. Traditional reactors called light water reactors and the Canadian CANDU heavy water reactor use water to cool the reactor core. Heat is dissipated in the water and there are a series of heat exchangers that take that water and either dump it into a river or a pond or exhaust it in a cooling tower. “In these new reactor designs, you draw that heat oﬀ with a gas,” said Dr. Rogers. “The gas is helium and doesn’t undergo a phase change. It’s non reactive. “You can take that helium and take it through a heat exchanger and it produces heat at very high temperature – up to 950 Celsius, whereas a light water reactor produces heat up to 300 C.” Dr. Rogers says INL is ﬁelding a lot of calls from heavy oil companies and from potash producers in Saskatchewan. They produce hydrogen for ammonia production use in fertilizers the same way oil companies do – with the combustion of methane. “That could be replaced, with nuclear,” said Dr. Rogers. Saskatchewan’s Uranium Development Partnership is expected to issue its report soon on nuclear energy with recommendations on opportunities for value-added development of the uranium industry.

News

Notes

TriStar raises its funds On March 24, TriStar Oil & Gas Ltd. announced it had completed its previously announced bought deal subscription receipt ﬁnancing, raising at total of $287.5 million. The ﬁnancing package was done to participate in a purchase of Talisman Energy’s southeast Saskatchewan assets, in conjunction with Crescent Point Energy Trust. Crescent Point and TriStar went halfers on purchasing Talisman’s properties and operations in the southeast. TriStar, through a syndicate of underwriters, issued a total of 35,937,500 subscription receipts at a price of $8.00 per subscription receipt to raise gross proceeds of $287.5 million. The underwriters' over-allotment option was exercised in full.

Bakken one of “The next big plays” On April 15, the Financial Post listed Saskatchewan’s Bakken play as one of three “next big plays” in the Canadian oilpatch. The other two listed were both in BC – Montney, the Horn River. The newspaper notes “A new generation of resource plays is on the horizon. They will be smaller than those found so far – the Montney, the Horn River and the Bakken. Some, like the Deep Basin and the Colorado shale, are in Alberta, which is good news for its depressed natural gas industry. Meanwhile, those already known will expand, with the Bakken oil play in southeast Saskatchewan and the Montney in northeast British Columbia getting a lot of the attention in the short term and the Horn River, also in B.C., over the longer term.

Baytex Energy Trust announces $100 Million bought deal ¿nancing

A nuclear power plant in Lloydminster, Prince Albert or North Battleford could help heavy oil companies boost production and cut carbon emissions.

Baytex Energy Trust announced on March 23 that it has entered into a bought deal ﬁnancing agreement with a syndicate of underwriters pursuant to which the syndicate has agreed to purchase 6,900,000 trust units at $14.50 per unit for total gross proceeds of $100,050,000. The net proceeds of the oﬀering will be used for general corporate purposes, according to a Baytex release.

EDITORIAL

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Pipeline News Publisher: Brant Kersey - Estevan Ph: 1.306.634.1015 Fax: 1.306.634.0141

Mission Statement: Pipeline News’ mission is to illuminate importance of Saskatchewan oil as an integral part of the province’s sense of community and to show the general public the strength and character of the industry’s people.

Editorial Contributions: SOUTHEAST Brian Zinchuk - Estevan 1.306.634.1015 SOUTHWEST Swift Current 1.306.634.1015 NORTHWEST Geoﬀ Lee - Lloydminster 1.780.875.6685

Associate Advertising Consultants: SOUTHEAST • Estevan 1.306.634.2654 Jan Boyle - Sales Manager Cindy Beaulieu Glenys Dorwart Kristen O’Handley Deanna Tarnes SOUTHWEST • Swift Current 1.306.773.8260 Doug Evjen Andrea Bonogofski NORTHWEST • Lloydminster Daniela Tobler 1.780.875.6685 MANITOBA • Virden - Gail Longmuir 1.204.748.3931 • Estevan - Jan Boyle 1.306.634.2654

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Pipeline News Estevan, SK Ph: 306.634.1015 Fax: 306.634.1041 Published monthly by Glacier Ventures International Corporation, Central Oﬃce, Estevan, Saskatchewan. Advertising rates are available upon request and are subject to change without notice. Conditions of editorial and advertising content: Pipeline News attempts to be accurate, however, no guarantee is given or implied. Pipeline News reserves the right to revise or reject any or all editorial and advertising content as the newspapers’ principles see ﬁt. Pipeline News will not be responsible for more than one incorrect insertion of an advertisement, and is not responsible for errors in advertisements except for the space occupied by such errors. Pipeline News will not be responsible for manuscripts, photographs, negatives and other material that may be submitted for possible publication. All of Pipeline News content is protected by Canadian Copyright laws. Reviews and similar mention of material in this newspaper is granted on the provision that Pipeline News receives credit. Otherwise, any reproduction without permission of the publisher is prohibited. Advertisers purchase space and circulation only. Rights to the advertisement produced by Pipeline News, including artwork, typography, and photos, etc., remain property of this newspaper. Advertisements or parts thereof may be not reproduced or assigned without the consent of the publisher. The Glacier group of companies collects personal information from our customers in the normal course of business transactions. We use that information to provide you with our products and services you request. On occasion we may contact you for purposes of research, surveys and other such matters. To provide you with better service we may share your information with our sister companies and also outside, selected third parties who perform work for us as suppliers, agents, service providers and information gatherers.

Editorial Sask - the Mecca of CCS Pipeline News focuses on a different aspect of the oilpatch each month, areas drilling, consultants, trucking, etc. This month it was research in the oilpatch. At first blush, one might think there’s not a lot going on in Saskatchewan, kind of like the theme for Corner Gas. You would be dead wrong. What we found in Regina was in part intimidating, in part overwhelming, and in part in awe-inspiring. The University of Regina, with the Saskatchewan Research Council, has become a Mecca of research when it comes to the whole carbon dioxide issue. We ran into Koreans, Brits, an Estonian, and a Thai. The Brits are part of a Korean company that is studying carbon capture, for instance. And they’re doing it in Regina. There are three research centres located at the U of R Innovation Place research park there whose work focuses on carbon dioxide, and how it relates to the oilpatch. First there’s the Petroleum Technology Research Centre, or PTRC, which is stand-alone. Then there’s the International Test Centre for CO2 Capture (ITC), and the International Performance Assessment Centre for Geologic Storage of CO2 (IPAC-CO2). The last two fall under the purview of the Office of Energy and Environment. It seems that everyone you talk to involved with these organizations is doing something involving putting some sort of gas underground. Carbon dioxide is the leading candidate, for sequestration or sequestration via enhanced oil recovery. PTRC is also working with solvent vapour extraction, another EOR technique. They’ve got you coming and going, when it comes to carbon dioxide. It’s kind of like the upstream/midstream/downstream of the oilpatch. ITC’s efforts are on capturing carbon dioxide at its source, the upstream, as it were. PTRC is focusing on sequestering it underground,

the downstream of the CO2 chain. Finally, IPAC-CO2’s role is to verify the carbon dioxide will indeed stay where you put it. In a world where CO2 and the global warming associated with it is collecting Nobel prizes, it’s the field to be in when it comes to research. Indeed, the man who founded each of these research centres, the dynamic Malcolm Wilson, Ph.D., shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with ex-Vice President Al Gore, as a member of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That’s heady company to be around, especially for a relatively small university like the U of R. Yet this is the work that’s happening in Saskatchewan. Not all of it is carbon dioxide related. PTRC and the Saskatchewan Research Council are spending a lot of time on enhanced oil recovery. They’re working on a new tool that the PRTC director hints will have a large impact on knowledge of what is happening underground. If successful, that, too could have a substantial impact. Dr. Wilson talks of building modular, off-the-shelf carbon capture units here, in Saskatchewan. It could be a whole new multi-billion dollar industry for this province. Got a power plant, or a refinery, or perhaps a cement plant? Call us up at 1-800-I GOT CO2, and we’ll bolt a capture unit on for you. The world has seen research efforts like this before – think of all the money thrown at HIV/AIDS since the 1980s. That was for a small portion of society. This CO2 stuff is for the planet. It’s going to take some time, but when the switch is thrown and people get serious about carbon capture, it is the folks in Regina they are going to be coming to. We could change the world or, even perhaps, save it.

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Opinion Of nuclear power and alligators Bruce Power believes nuclear power is feasible for uranium-rich Saskatchewan. So are free-ranging alligator farms, but building either of these facilities would be reckless without guarantees of public safety and demonstrated need. At open house sessions in North Battleford, Prince Albert and Lloydminster, Bruce Power stressed it would strive to prevent accidents or threats with good design, a safety and security culture and emergency plans. Despite assurances, public fears were voiced over questions about radioactive waste and possible leakages of contaminated materials into the water or atmosphere. Consider this however: the World Health Organization estimates that pollution from fossil fuels cause nearly three million deaths each year. Medical scientists estimate fossil fuel mortality rate will triple by the year 2025. By contrast, no one has been killed or injured by a nuclear power accident in North America including Three Mile Island. When it comes to need, there is no question that Saskatchewan’s power demands will increase over the next two decades along with economic growth. The province estimates it will need an additional 2,200 megawatts of electrical power by 2020 and a nuclear plant could add about 1,000 MW to the mix by then. SaskPower is investing $950 million this year

Lee Side of Lloyd Geoff Lee

alone to meet the growing demand in the province. Of the total, $400 million will be spent on new generation projects including the construction of simple cycle gas turbines. Nuclear power is likely to ﬁnd allies in the oil and gas sector as a way to signiﬁcantly reduce carbon emissions and increase production without having to produce hydrogen for upgrading by burning fossil fuels. Nuclear got a boost in March when the province signed a research agreement with a leading energy research lab in Idaho to apply research into nuclear, heavy oil, shale oil and renewable energy sources that will lead to pilot projects and economic opportunities for both parties. The Idaho National Laboratory has also signed research agreements with the Alberta Research Council aimed at bringing nuclear power to the oil-

sands. Further advancements toward nuclear power will be forthcoming when Saskatchewan’s Uranium Development Partnership issues its report on nuclear energy with recommendations on opportunities for value-added development of the uranium industry. These announcements will also generate additional value-added research into the use of nuclear for the energy sector by the Petroleum Research Centre in Regina. Discussions are underway to create a nuclear centre of excellence at the University of Saskatoon. Nuclear could to be added to the electrical power mix, knowing Saskatchewan has about 25 per cent of the global production of uranium used for a nuclear fuel and about 97 per cent of the richest ore in the world. Despite all of these known and potential economic benefits and spinoffs of nuclear power, questions over the safety and reliability of nuclear power need to be thoroughly addressed before decisions are made. The public also needs to know if Saskatchewan’s power needs could be better met by alternative means namely wind, solar and biomass that would also benefit the province economically. Alligators look safe at a distance too, but we know from experience that proper containment education and security systems and are the keys to public security when these things are in our midst.

Tata Nano will impact oil demand From the top of the pile Brian Zinchuk

One of the reasons often stated for the tremendous run-up in the price of oil during 2008 was the growing demand from China and India. That demand may have diminished with the current recession, but when things turn around, look out. A big part of that demand is going to be for a car whose name is synonymous with ‘small,’ but it’s impact will be huge. It’s called the Tata Nano, and it went on sale April 1. As far as cars go, it’s not much. There are no air bags, no power steering, no power brakes, no air conditioning. The base model doesn’t have a heater, either, but then again, why would you need a heater in equatorial India?

It’s got a small, gutless motor, minimal finishings, and just enough room to squeeze four adults in. Understandably, it’s meant to get very good fuel mileage. With the congestion of Indian roadways, going anything over 100 km/h is a pipe dream anyhow, so there’s really no point in giving it much in the way of horsepower. At the speed most of these cars will spend most of their time at, air bags probably wouldn’t deploy, anyhow. Indeed, except for the air bags and lack of a heater, it sounds a lot like the ‘98 Chev Metro I drove for a decade. That car was cheap to buy, and cheap to operate – giving me 50 mpg on the road and in town for the first five years, and slowly diminishing to around 45 mpg in its later years on the highway and 40 mpg in town. The fuel efficiency for the two-cylinder, 624 cc Nano engine is advertised at 23.6 L/km, or 66.3 mpg. That’s almost exactly what the stated fuel efficiency was for my three cylinder, 1.0 L Metro on the highway, but I have never, ever seen it. While I paid $12,000 for my Metro 11 years ago, the base model Nano is $2,050 US, or about $2,570 CDN at the time of writing. I could have bought five Nanos for the price of my Metro and its extended warranty, one for every day of the work week. I could probably cram four in the two-car garage, too. It’s not the first small car. It’s not the first cheap car. But it is so absurdly cheap, in a time when India

is truly coming into the fore, that it will convert India from a nation of scooters to a nation of car-owners. Don’t expect it to stop in the sub-continent, either. These cars will likely take off like wildfire across developing nations. It will be for the developing world what the model T was for North America 100 years ago. They won’t be able to build them fast enough. And if it doesn’t fly in China, it’s a given China will produce its own, similar vehicle. It might even be cheaper. Once the car has been around for a few years, and older models are available at used car prices, a second generation of buyers will be added to the car-owning ranks. This micro car, on a macro scale, will literally change the world. Sure, it may be fuel efficient, but it will still use substantially more fuel than the scooters and motorcycles. That, in turn, will lead to higher demand, and then higher oil prices. We will see the results in our own oil patch, trying to keep up with global demand. For places like Saskatchewan, where oil production is a big deal, the more Nanos they pump out, the better. Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News (www. pipelinenews.ca). He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@ sasktel.net

PIPELINE NEWS INVITES OPPOSING VIEW POINTS. EDITORIALS AND LETTERS TO THE EDITOR WELCOME. Email to: brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Oil Chat with Bruce Penton

Bruce Penton, associate-editor with the Medicine Hat Daily News and syndicated columnist will be contributing a Q&A with inÁuential Canadian Petroleum personnel each month for Pipeline News.

Keith Lowdon Director of the Manitoba Petroleum Branch

Keith Lowdon grew up in the Virden area and has been surrounded by the oil industry his whole life. His father was in the industry, while his uncle, a farmer in the Waskada area, had some wells on his land. Keith helped out with his uncle’s wells before taking geology courses and later computer courses at Brandon University. He started with the Manitoba Petroleum Branch as an inspector and moved up the ranks until he was named director three years ago. Once the appointment was permanent, he and his wife and two children moved to Winnipeg. Away from the office and the oil patch, Lowdon is heavily involved in music. In fact, he and some pals have even recorded a CD under the band name Road Concession. Bruce Penton chatted with Lowdon in late April. Pipeline News: What is the No. 1 responsibility of the Director of the Petroleum Branch of Science, Technology, Energy and Mines? Keith Lowdon: The promotion of the oil industry. PN: Do you deal with Manitoba developments only, or anything outside of the province? Lowdon: Yeah, we’re provincial, so we’re only concerned with Manitoba, although we are interested in what other provinces are doing. PN: It all impacts on you, right? Lowdon: By watching what other people are doing, we can try to improve on our service delivery. Sometimes it helps quite a bit. PN: What would be a typical thing you’d have to deal with? Would an oil company call and say can we drill in a particular area, or something like that? Lowdon: I should watch what I say, because there are people who are far smarter and work for the branch and look after the nuts and bolts. PN: You just call the shots, right? Lowdon: Not even that. Ultimately, I guess you’re responsible if things go wrong. But we have an engineering section and it looks after itself and part of that is inspection staff. We have staff who have been around for years and really know what their job is and what they’re doing. My job is to do what other people don't want to do and just try to get out of their way. PN: How have things changed in the Manitoba oilpatch since the price of oil dropped from $140 last year to around $50 now? Lowdon: Surprisingly, it hasn't changed that much. Of course everybody’s experiencing the fact that there are fewer wells. If you look at Manitoba, our primary focus of drilling is in the Sinclair Field, that's where people are really active. We knew there would be drilling going on. Last October we predicted there would be 200 to 250 wells drilled in Manitoba. Looks like we’re going to be in that lower range, around 200. That’s really good. But what’s interesting if you look at what’s happened this year is how much the focus has changed because most of the wells that are drilled — 93 per cent of them — are horizontals vs. maybe 20 per cent last year. So that’s a big change. PN: How does Manitoba’s royalty rate structure compare with Saskatchewan’s and Alberta’s? Lowdon: We’re a good jurisdiction that way. We have our strengths and weaknesses. What industry has told us is it’s a favourable environment. And I guess they’re voting by drilling here, right? PN: Where are the hottest plays right now? Lowdon: Still Sinclair. Bakken is a big gun. However, there are a couple of other interesting areas. The whole Waskada field that was drilled out in the 80s, EOG has undertaken a new way of completing wells in that area and they’re having some pretty good luck. They’re generating a lot of interest. PN: What’s happening in the Bakken play? Lowdon: Well, if you look at the Bakken, it’s primarily Sinclair. There’s 885 wells in that field. Five years

ago there were basically none. PN: I read somewhere that there’s billions of barrels of oil under there. What do you hear? Lowdon: Yeah, we hear that too, but we’re a little more cautious. PN: But the bulk of it is in North Dakota, correct? Lowdon: It is. The Williston basin straddles the Turtle Mountain area, heading up through Souris, Hartney, almost to Brandon and up to St. Lazare country. It’s a fairly small area compared to North Dakota. PN: Have you got any idea how many people the oil industry employs in Manitoba? Lowdon: About 1,500. PN: Does it stay pretty steady around that figure, or does it fluctuate? Lowdon: That’s gone up, because if you look at the number of producers, we’re about 2,900 producers right now. Our production has basically doubled in the last five years so our infrastructure is a lot larger than it was. If we were talking eight, nine years ago, you would say in the neighbourhood of 400 people, so it’s gone up substantially. PN: Has anybody ever tried to estimate a dollar value of the industry to the province? Lowdon: Yeah, we have. I don’t have that information in front of me, but in the last five years, the industry has spent $1.5 billion in the province. Some of that money ends up in Saskatchewan and Alberta, but the major thing is the people that are working in the jobs in some of the service companies are Manitoba-based. So it’s all good. There’s always trade-offs. You’ve got Manitoba people working in Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan people working in Manitoba. PN: What do you know about the discovery of oil in the Sinclair Field? Was it anything like the euphoria surrounding Turner Valley in Alberta? Lowdon: No. Probably what you should do is talk to a company like Tundra, who discovered that field and developed that land base. It was fairly muted, but there were rumours in the coffee shops that there was something happening. They’re good wells. If you look at the average producing well in Manitoba, it’s 1.4 cubes per day. So if you convert that to barrels, we’re looking at nine barrels a day. PN: What year was the Sinclair field discovered? Lowdon: The discovery was 2004. PN: How about Virden? Lowdon: That was 1951. It’s been there for a long time. PN: What was your background in the oil industry prior to becoming involved with the Petroleum branch? Lowdon: My background was actually a guitar player. A bass guitar player. This is a really a dumb story, but I was playing with this guy in Winnipeg, a really handsome guy and women just loved him, but he wrote these really morose songs, so I played bass for him. I was sort of the tag-along. So he and I took off for Los Angeles with some songs he’d written and I’d played bass on, and we tried to hawk them. Obviously that didn’t

work out and when I came back I stopped off at my parents’ place in Virden and found out that my uncle in Waskada had had a heart attack and he needed somebody to look after some wells. I wasn’t doing anything and so I offered to help out. My dad had worked in the industry for years, so I knew a little about it. So what I did was start pumping wells, and then I went to BU and took some geology courses but my uncle got better and took his wells over. I just about drove him nuts. He was a farmer, too, so I was helping him farm. I think it was hard on his heart. After that I got a job with the Petroleum Branch as an inspector, and I did that for a few years and decided I wanted to go back to school, so I applied for a leave of absence and went back to BU and actually ended up teaching computer programming. PN: Did that help you eventually get your present job as director of the branch? Lowdon: In a weird way, it did, because when I came back — actually, I was going to university during the day and working for the branch at night — looking after some of their automation and I became more familiar with things that were going on. Of course, computers really took over and because you’re in everybody’s space, you get to know a little bit about what everybody does. And then years passed and the next thing I knew, I was in this job. PN: What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the nearly 30 years you’ve been around the Manitoba oil industry? Lowdon: The one thing I haven't seen change is the people. It’s a great place to work. The people are a lot of fun. But I think the automation and technology has changed immensely. If you look at the footprint of rigs and the way we do things today, we really minimize environmental impacts compared to years ago. Just the way fluids are handled, the ion spills and how people are realizing there is an environmental rehab cost. PN: How ‘green’ is the industry? Lowdon: We’re getting greener all the time. By nature of our industry, with the product we’re producing, it’s essential, but it’s not necessarily the greenest product, right? But here are some things we are doing. In Manitoba, there’s a CO2 pilot study going on in Sinclair and what’s happening from that is carbon dioxide from the Koch fertilizer plant in Brandon is being trucked over to Sinclair and pumped down Section 4. That experiment’s going on. That’s all good, right? You can increase oil production and it might prove to be a good way to get rid of CO2. As far as the rehab and spills, inspectors are always trying to come up with ways of minimizing those. Companies are required to submit rehab plans on a yearly basis. PN: What was the theme of your speech when you spoke in Regina recently to the Williston Basin Petroleum Society? Lowdon: It was just a recap of 2008. PN: What was the most exciting thing you had to report?

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009 Lowdon: Manitoba had a record production year and the oil patch has been around for 58 years, so that’s quite an accomplishment at this stage of the game. PN: What might I find you doing on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the summertime? Lowdon: I’ll probably be down in my basement with my guitar. I’ve got a recording studio down there. I wouldn’t call it a studio. It’s a computer with junk. I like farting around with that stuff. PN: Have you recorded anything? Lowdon: Yeah, I just moved from Virden last July. I’ve been doing this job for three years, but when push came to shove, and it became permanent, they requested I move to Winnipeg. There was a group of five of us who got together once a week for years. We made up songs and talked about religion and maybe drank the occasional beer or two, although all of us didn’t drink. So we got these songs together and we had probably 40 to 50 songs and I realized I was leaving, so I thought it’s time to record some of these. So we did one CD. They weren’t our best songs, but they were the ones we had ready. You can get them on iTunes, right? It’s been a big seller. The royalties are just flying in. One cheque was like 20 bucks. PN: What do you call your group? Lowdon: Concession Road. PN: How would you describe the kind of music you play? Lowdon: It’s kind of rootsy. Some of it sounds like John Hiatt, that kind of stuff. PN: So you’re really into music? Lowdon: Oh, yeah. The one person who was in that band and he’s still a friend of mine and always will be a friend of mine, even though he lives miles away . . . that guy, I wish he was a woman, ‘cause he cooks and he’s a great guitar player and a super guy and he always brought his own beer. PN: Right, everything you want in a woman. Moving on . . . tell me about your most memorable vacation. Lowdon: That would be back when I was younger. I remember one when my parents and my sister and I went down to Texas. We’d tried New Orleans, but Mardi Gras was on and we couldn’t find a place to stay.

We had a truck with a camper in the back. Somewhere in Texas we were driving and my father was a bit lost. He ended up on the Mexican side of the lineup, but he didn’t want to go to Mexico, so he turned around and yelled for me to come and help him with directions. My mother was in the front. So I got out of the camper in the back and he drove away. He didn’t know I wasn’t in the car. That was memorable. PN: How old were you when that happened? Lowdon: I’d moved away and they felt sorry for me and thought we should all go on a vacation. I was about 17 or 18. PN: Tell me about your family now. Lowdon: My wife’s a really good Scrabble player. One of these days I’m going to beat her. And I have an 18-year-old son who’s just started working. PN: Is he in the oil patch? Lowdon: No, he’s trying to ﬁgure out what he’s going to do and he got a job at Chase Autobody in Winnipeg and it turns out that he likes it. The plan is for him to go back to school, but as long as he likes what he’s doing, he can do that later. I have a 10-year-old daughter, too. She’s really good at Mario Kart, things like that. PN: OK, if I’ve got the credit card out and I’m paying at a fancy restaurant, what are you eating? Lowdon: Probably a pizza. PN: Pizza? With what toppings? Lowdon: I really like green pepper, mushroom and pepperoni. PN: Where are you more skilled: In the kitchen, on the golf course or telling a joke. Lowdon: Deﬁnitely not a joke teller. I like to cook. PN: What’s your specialty? Lowdon: There’s a dish where you put goat cheese inside chicken with dried tomatoes and some spinach on it. It’s pretty good. PN: How often do you cook that for your wife? Lowdon: Not too often. She says I cook too fat. Everything I cook is fat. PN: When you were on the verge of graduating from high school, what kind of a career did you think you’d have?

Lowdon: Well, I thought it would be music, right? Because I was sure I was the best. PN: Who were your big influences back then, the Beatles? Lowdon: I think we all were to some extent. Probably more Jimi Hendrix than anything. PN: If I asked you for your top three favourite songs of all time, what would they be? Lowdon: I really like Joy by Lucinda Williams. There’s a version she does with Kenny Vaughn she recorded in Austin City Limits. That’s a really good song. John Hiatt’s Perfectly Good Guitar. And Kathleen Edwards. She’s kind of like Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. I like her stuff. PN: Can you foresee the day when our society won’t need oil? Lowdon: It will happen some day. But if you look at it right now . . . for years and years we’re going to need oil, because even if we solve the ability of how we’re going to move things around without oil and we get that resolved . . . if we look at the plastics and petrochemical industries and all those things that we do. Almost everything that we own has some oil component in it. I think it will be a lot of years before we find something to replace that product. PN: And is there a never-ending supply? Lowdon: No. There’s lots of oil out there, but it’s definitely finite.

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Nuclear power plant spinoffs for oil and gas sector not clear

Radiation scientist Doug Boreham explained the workings of a nuclear power plant at an open house in Lloydminster.

Story and photos by Geoﬀ Lee Lloydminster–Bruce Power held information sessions in Lloydminster, Prince Albert and North Battleford in March for a proposed 1,000 megawatt nuclear plant that some people doubted would beneﬁt the oil and gas sector. Take Brent Habetler for example. He works in Lloydminster and he believes there would be a limited use for local welders during the construction phase. “It’s all concrete work mostly because of the shielding factor,” he said at the open house in Lloydminster. “The work would be in-house because of security issues.” Habelter’s comments were made knowing that if the Saskatchewan government approved the project today, it would take until 2020 for the plant to become operational. The open houses were held to allow Bruce Power to determine if the project can be constructed safely, if there is broad community support for it and if the government of Saskatchewan will provide policy support. Bruce Power also wants to determine if it’s economically viable to build a nuclear facility in any of the three open-house communities before the project moves ahead. “We are not asking people to support this for economic development reasons,” explained Bruce Power spokesperson, James Scongack. “All we are asking people to do is have an open mind. There is a lot of interest in the dialogue over nuclear power. We felt it would be helpful to put a

lot of facts on the table so people get the true story about Bruce Power and nuclear power in general.” Bruce Power estimates 2,200 jobs would be created during construction and another 1,000 jobs a year over the 60-year life of the plant. “If Bruce Power progressed to construct a facility we would look to determine what supply chain existed locally and find out what possibilities there were,” said Scongack. “I wouldn’t say specifically we have had a lot of inquiries from oil and gas companies, but we’ve had a lot of requests for information from companies in general. “In today’s climate people are looking for new business opportunities that are available. Like any large industrial project, there is a particular supply chain required as well as skilled labour.” The project would also generate approximately$18 billion in tax revenue during the construction phase but Habetler said, “All of the specifics for the technologies that needed are in Calgary and Edmonton for these projects. “Right now, I am weighing the options, but I can’t see it as a possibility for this area. We already have enough danger with H2S and the upgrader. “One of my concerns is how much Charlene Taupadel from Paradise Hill wore her opposition shirt. waste are they going to create? Where back roads.” are they going to take it and how much traffic they Retired oilfield worker Barry Benkendorf shares would create in the community? Habelter’s assessment that specialized workers “We already have so much traffic from the serwould have to be brought in to build the nuclear vice rigs and all of the vehicles on the road. This plant. would increase traffic by at least 30 per cent on the ɸ Page A9

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Questions remain on spinoffs ɺ Page A8

newable energy. In terms of job production, it’s not “The ordinary average the best that we have goJoe around here doesn’t ing out there,” she said. know enough about it,” Bruce Power’s prehe said. “I imagine there sentation points out Saswill be some spinoff jobs katchewan has a projectinvolving earth work, but ed power need for 2,200 the specialty work will go MW by 2020 which supto the building crews of ports the nuclear power the complex.” option. Benkendorf says “In our feasibility what brought him to study that we released, the meeting was “not the our view is that even in a energy part so much but very conservative growth what’s going to happen scenario in Saskatchewith the waste. There are wan, there is a need for at alternative energies out least 1,000 MW of new there that can do just the nuclear,” said Scongack. same job with a heck of a “We could see nuclear by lot less waste material.” 2020 playing a role with Meggan Hougham about 25 per cent of the from Save Our Sas- electrical supply mix.” katchewan, a local group Hougham stated, “If opposing the project, says we do need more power, the environmental, health there are other ways to be and safety issues and, in producing that. We are a her mind, the question- group that is opposed. able sustainability and There are too many conreliability of a nuclear cerns that outweigh the power plant outweigh positives.” any economic benefits. Bruce Power’s site “I think per capita in criteria is based on where nuclear power, the jobs there is a sufficient workproduced are far lower force, a sufficient supply than oil and gas or re- of cooling water and easy

access to power markets. “At this early stage, I wouldn’t say one community has an edge over another in any of the criteria,” said Scongack. “We are pretty open minded at this stage.” All three communities for consideration are near the north and south Saskatchewan rivers. Scongack says Estevan was also under consideration at one time due to the amount of power generation and transmission infrastructure in that area. “We concluded that coal would continue to play a role in Estevan’s future so we looked at other areas where additional generation could be produced. We looked all over the province,” he said. Location is deﬁnitely top of mind for Steve McKechnie of Lloydminster. He says the proposed location in the Lloydminster area is just 1.6 miles from his kitchen window.

Meggan Hougham from Save Our Saskatchewan asks questions to a presenter at an open house in Lloydminster.

“That could have some substantial ramifications on me and they could be good or not so good,” he said. As for nuclear plant construction jobs, McKecknie said, “Nuclear power is another industry and building a plant would create jobs. “The oil industry is a finite resource. Twenty years from now, we might be happy to have employment from some of the spinoffs from hav-

ing a power plant.” The open houses were followed by an announcement by Saskatchewan Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd to work with the Idaho National Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy on nuclear power research and oil and gas energy projects. “The next step for us is to continue to explore the options in this area with respect to sites,” said

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Scongack. “The Province has a policy decision they have to make whether or not nuclear power is going to play a role in Saskatchewan. There has to be a positive environment.” The Saskatchewan Uranium Development Partnership is expected to issue its report on nuclear power generation in the province in the coming week as part of the public involvement process.

May 2009 edition

CDN Distributor of the Year Redhead Equipment wins award 2 years running

Each location has over 32,000 sq ft of space with the exception of the newly built Saskatoon acility which is just over an 82,000 sq ft.

Redhead Equipment was recently presented with the 2008 Canadian Distributor of the Year Award from Mack Canada, making this the second year in a row that they have been recognized for outstanding achievement.

All locations feature well stocked parts departments and state-of-the-art service facilities to offer customers the very best experience available.

With over 60 years in business, Redhead is currently one of the largest equipment dealers in Saskatchewan. Gary Redhead, President and C.E.O., and has offered Mack trucks as part of their diverse inventory line up since 1990. The organization employs over 350 people in 6 locations throughout the province located in Regina, Saskatoon, Swift Current, Lloydminster and Estevan.

With over 120 Service Technicians and on-call emergency Parts & Service staff, Redhead Equipment is committed to quality, ef¿cient service 24/7. Redhead’s Saskatoon location boasts over 82,000 sq ft of space to assist their large and diverse clientele.

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In 2009, Redhead Equipment also received two market-share awards from Volvo and Case Construction Equipment; proving their unprecedented ability to offer one-stop-shopping.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Kudu takes Lloydminster Bonspiel Story and photos by Geoff Lee Lloydminster –Kudos go to Kudu Industries #1 in Macklin for winning the top A-event against perennial threat, Granite Oilfield Services at the 42nd annual Lloydminster Heavy Open Bonspiel. Randy Gartner, the third for Kudu fired off the words “skill” to describe how they upset Monte Armstrong in the championship March 22. “It was a great game,” added Gartner whose team rushed off the ice without further comment to race an ice storm back to Macklin. Armstrong has won the A-flight several times in the past and praised his foes but blamed himself for the loss. “They were a little sharper than we were,” he said. “On one end, we gave them four and after that, we were kind of chasing. He (Kudu skip Ted Tryhuba) made a good double on the last end to keep us from going on. “I didn’t curl sharp. The skip has to be making the right shots and I wasn’t quite making them.” Like team Kudu, Armstrong’s team got to the finals with a perfect 5-0 record including a tough win over defending champion Weatherford BMW #1 with curling club chair John Stanyer aboard.

Ted Collins and his wife Jean had reserved seating at the banquet. Ted was a former Oilmen of the Year and also sang the national anthem.

This time around Stanyer’s team with skip Doug Zingel and Martin Code and Doug Larson won the E-event over Champion Technologies and suffered only one loss – to Monte Armstrong’s team. “It seems like every year, you have to go through Monte,” said Stanyer. “That’s the way it goes.” To recap, the championships events winners were A- Kudu Industries #1, BEveryready Energy, C-Transco Energy, D- Weatherford BMW #2, E-Weatherford BMW #1, F-Servus Credit Union, G-Kelro Pump and H-Integra Energy. Keeping track of the scores was Al Johnston who has been the tournament drawmaster for three years in a row. He’s not an oilfield worker so he can‘t compete but he says he “kind of enjoys the curling and the fellowship. It’s a good chance to get out and meet everybody. “My job is to keep track of the scores and mark them on the draw board so everybody knows when they have to curl next.” Fun is the name of the game at the Lloyd bonspiel and that’s what will bring back the likes of Dermot O-Hagan. He swept his heart out for the Kudu Killers from Drayton Valley in a semi-final loss to Wild Rows Pump and Compression. “The highlight for me was the bonspieling and the partying,” he said. “This is our second tournament. We did a little better this time. We won two games. It was a good time. “ O’Hagan attributed his team’s loss to “maybe too much partying the night before.”

Daryl Flasch from team Transco Energy throws a stone.

Partying was a major part of the tournament banquet that included former Oilmen of the Year alumni, Ted Collins, Howard Cayford, Tom Fisher and Keith Collinge who have played in all 42 annual bonspiels. How do they do it? According to 79 –year-old Collins who skips the Stanchuk Trucking team, the secret is to add a couple of younger fellas to the team to keep the dream of winning the top pool one more time alive. He has six championship titles to his name and last won it in 1988. “I’ll be 80 next year and I hope to be able to curl in the bonspiel again,” he said. Collins said the bonspiel began with 32 teams and there have been as many as 120 teams over the years with this year’s downturn dropping the total to 80. “It’s a good time and it’s a chance for the oil industry to get the workers together and the executives and the engineers together and have a good time,” he explained. “It’s more about the fellowship than anything else.” Collins worked in the oil industry for more than 50 years in contracting and owned truck and earth moving equipment before selling out then retiring in 2002. “When I started, oil was about 70 cents a barrel and it hit a high of nearly $150 last summer so that’s quite a change” he said. “The industry has really grown around here. I miss it but I couldn’t go back to it.” ɸ Page A11

Betty and Howard Cayford are all smiles the banquet. Howard has curled in all 42 bonspiels.

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Lloyd bonspiel ɺ Page A10 Cayford, who is 73, voiced few illusions of winning it all at his age for team ICI Artiﬁcial Lift at the banquet. “I play skip until I play a bad game and then I become whatever I designate myself to,” he quipped. Cayford was the past president of the oilmen’s bonspiel during a four year stretch from 197679 and says, “It’s gotten bigger for sure. It has

always been a well run spiel. They have tremendous support financially from businesses in the community. “When we had our first bonspiel we were worried about finding enough money to pay the rink rent. We went on a tour of the town and we got money from everybody.” Cayford first came to Lloydminster to work for Husky Energy and later was an operations manager and shareholder for

Border Drilling for 14 years. “When border disbanded, my brother and I started a company called Cayford holdings Ltd. that was into hydraulics and rig building and air foam services. We sold the air foam business to Mike’s Oilﬁeld,” said Cayford at his reserved table. The festivities included a toast and presentation to this year’s oil man of the year, Frank Jezowski and his wife Claudette and an introduction of head table guests. Curling was top of mind though with a presentation to members of team A Plus Machining, the aggregate winners of the draw-to-the-button contest. A sponsor’s award was also presented to Eldon Heck of Trydon Tool Service by bonspiel president Jeﬀ Latos. Lyle Stang helps to brush his Kudu Industries #1 team to the Aevent title.

Eldon Heck from Tryton Tool Service accepts a sponsor’s award from bonspiel president Jeff Latos.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

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Open house to showcase Metaltek’s CAD/CAM machining By Geoff Lee Lloydminster –Welcome to a 21st century machine shop. Metaltek Machining is holding an open house May 14 to showcase the latest generation of computerized numerical control (CNC) lathes and milling machines in their expanded manufacturing facility. Owner and CEO Kent Carriere along with partners Jackson McGee and Adam Budenski – all journeymen machinists – will be on hand to demonstrate how they use advanced CAD/CAM software with CNC machines to prototype, produce or repair parts or tools from start to finish. “A lot of people don’t realize what we have for high-tech equipment,” said Carriere. “When people think machine shop, they think of a little lathe in the corner and a milling machine made in the ’40s. I think it will be a real eye opener for lot of people to see how high-tech things are from the initial idea to the design, engineering and finished product. “We’re going to show the production steps and have the machines running. It will be good for everyone in industry to realize the capabilities that we have in Lloydminster.” Metaltek has the ability to make a product from scratch starting with the CAD/CAM technology operated by McGee who has 26 years of experience as a machinist. “If someone wanted us to make a flange, we would need to know what specifications are required and we would build it to API specs,” said McGee. “We would source out the materials to meet those specs and get the materials in. “Sometimes there are custom requirements for

projects, so we draw it or scale it on the computer. From there, the software allows us to create a program that is sent to the CNC machines. “CAD usually comes into play for prototypes and for production runs. I design things from a machinist’s point of view. “My focus is on ease of manufacturing. The goal is to manufacture a product from a cost effective standpoint and still get the job done for the customer.” Standard Metaltek machining tasks include API treading, surface grinding and valve repair, wellhead flanges, rod hangers, heavy duty C vices, rod breakers, BOP testing nipples , sandline bailer and bailer bits and tubing drains. “We manufacture any product for any customer who comes along,” said Carriere. Where Metaltek shines is in its ability to work from a customer’s drawing or idea or from a sample part and take it from a CAD design to a completed machined product. “When we have a product to manufacture, we will sit down and do a rough sketch of what we want to see,” said Carriere. “ Jackson does all of the design and Adam does the engineering. We put our heads together and come up with a saleable product at the end of the day. “It’s a team approach. We are always running new ideas off each other. Every perspective makes your product that much better at the end.” CAD drawings are converted by McGee to a programmed code that is uploaded to a specific CNC machine. An operator can edit the program using a key pay and assign various built-in tools to carry out operations like threading or drilling a hole.

“Once you have proved the program and everything’s been measured and signed oﬀ, you go into production from that point whether it’s two pieces or 2,000 pieces,” said Carriere. “The software and the machines that we are running are basically the latest that are out there. ɸ Page A14

Kent Carriere has equipped his shop with the latest CNC lathes. An open house is planned May 14.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

CAD/CAM technology ɺ Page A13 A lot of the work we do is too labour intensive for manually operated lathes. When you get into complicated parts like internal radiuses you can’t reproduce that effectively on a traditional lathe.” The CNC lathes are used for machining tubular and round products – cutting threads, drilling holes and cutting internal threads. The lathe has the flexibility to machine any sized part up to a 30-inch diameter. The milling machines are used for drilling and tapping holes, milling slots and cutting windows in tubes and have the capability to handle text and logo engraving, intricate curves and shapes and large milling jobs. Metaltek also has a combination CNC lathe and mill for products that require a mill and a lathe operation . “We can thread casing and drill collars and do both operations in one set up so it saves time and money,” said Carriere. Manual lathes are used to machine a multitude of parts from very small pieces all the way up to 30-inch diameter pieces. Manual mills allow Metaltek to perform all types of operations such as milling, drilling and tapping any spot on a workpiece. “We can do all kinds of stuff from adapting existing equipment and making equipment more efficient to designing new products from ideas,” said Carriere.

“That’s how we got our start designing new products. I have a patent on a downhole tool that I designed 10 years ago. You kind of build your reputation on designing new products for people and working with people on modifying equipment.” Lloydminster, with the type of heavy oil and the high sand cut, leads to a lot of innovation. There are a lot of new products and ideas out there and you can bring them to the table and make them workable.” Recently, Metaltek designed and manufactured a mixing system and a relief valve system for metal bottles used to collect oil samples from pipelines for testing in the lab. “Designing something that is interesting and new is the exciting side of the business,” said Carrier. “It’s exciting to see an idea on paper that is hand-drawn become a completed product. That’s a rewarding experience.” Carriere started Metaltek 12 years ago with a couple of machines and is surprised the company has grown to the point where he is having an open house to mark the latest expansion. “When I started, I envisioned making a good living for myself,” he said. “I tried to advance with technology as it became available and it kind of grew from that point.” As for further expansion Carriere said, “I’m not slowing down now. I got a few more years left in me. I am shooting for the moon.”

Machinist Todd Collins measures a plate roll on a manual lathe.

CNC lathe operator Jeremy BloomÀeld uses the keypad to set up a job.

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Oilpatch career enables active farmer to exercise his green thumb Provost –You can take the farmer off the land, but you can’t take the land out of the farmer. That’s the case with Brian Carter who packed in his 32-year career in the oilpatch in 2008 to construct a greenhouse gardening and landscaping business in Provost with a May 4 opening date. He will also continue to farm part time with his wife Anita and recite his reasons for retiring from the oilfield at age 51 should anyone ask. “With the oilpatch down right now, it might be a good time to start something new,” explained Carter. “I think the main thing was, I got tired of the oilfield and needed something new for a change. I wanted something with fewer hours – although those greenhouses might have big hours – but shorter seasons and not year-round like the oilfield.” Carter started working in the oilpatch in 1981 and formed Winterhawk Enterprises Ltd, an oilfield services company in Provost with a fleet of crew trucks and steam, vacuum, pressure trucks and flushbys. In, 2004 Winterhawk merged with Everyready Energy. The time was right in September 2008 for Carter and his wife his wife to form B. Carter Enterprises and build a new career focused on the landscaping side of the greenhouse and garden centre. Asked what his former oilpatch buddies think of his new walk of life, Carter said, “I’m not sure. Maybe they think I am little bit wonky going from dirty oil to driving big trucks to working in the garden – so I don’t know. “The ones that know me know I like farming and growing stuff. Most of them are pretty receptive. “I am a farmer by hear. If I could do anything I wanted, I would farm a million acres if I could. I love growing things and Tara Carter and Brenda Lakevold have planting. I like the landscaping teamed up to relocate to the Sugar and side of it more than the planting. Spice Gift and Garden Ltd. Once you are a farmer you like

stuff that grows and turns green. This is just something else hopefully a guy can work with and make it a profitable business. “Hopefully, this has got set hours. The oilpatch was 24/7 and it ran 24/7 pretty hard at times. There are good people on both sides, but I think the hours will be less, other than the peak seasons. When I am landscaping there is a short window there and I will have to go hard, but the winter will be easier in most cases.” The greenhouse gardening centre is located on a three acre site at the east end of town. The site features two greenhouses and a retail and garden centre. Once completed, the yard will include a 28- ft tall windmill and a barn play centre for kids and an 8,000 gallon fish pond. Carter aims to design and install backyard ponds and waterfalls, build decks and patios and offer cement curbing for gardens and flower beds along with paving stones. He and his wife will conduct the landscaping business in the workshop beside the main garden Brian Carter gave up his oilÀeld career to open centre. a new landscaping business with a greenhouse ɸ Page A16 and gardening centre.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

From the oilpatch over to the greenhouse ɺ Page A15 Carter has built the property to lease the two greenhouses and garden centre to Sugar & Spice Gift and Garden Ltd. that is co-owned by his daughter Tara and Brenda Lakevold. Lakevold owned and operated Sugar & Spice Floral and Garden Ltd. for four years in downtown Provost while Tara owned a gift shop called Tear Drop Treasures for one year. The pair have merged and relocated to the new greenhouse complex under the

new name. “They decided that was a good thing to do together and I wanted to do the landscaping,” said Carter. “They are going to run the store and I am going to do the landscaping. “Brenda was at a stage where she had outgrown her business and my daughter wanted to get into something she could have some help with,” said Carter. “Instead of trying to start a business, my daughter thought she would

Mural artist Dave Thomas applies some Ànishing touches to this portrait of Jade Miller, the niece of business owner Brian Carter.

buy into the business with Brenda and become partners with her.” Sugar and Spice will grow and sell everything from annuals, perennials, bedding plants, vegetables and seeds in the greenhouses and retail a variety of ﬂoral arrangements and gifts in the cavernous retail store that has lots of wow appeal. Artists Dave and Al Thomas from Flying Colors Mural and Design have painted a couple of walls with images of Carter’s ﬁve-year old grandson DAO and his niece Jade Miller set in pastoral scenes. “The painters created a bit of a country setting for us and have added a homey feel to it,” said Carter. “The

murals are there to get people to come in and relax. “We will have a cafeteria with coffee, ice cream and some dinner items. We are on the east side of town so this way, customers will feel more comfortable and spend a few minutes here and enjoy it. “Hopefully, this will help bring more people to town to stop and eat and buy in town. We hope it’s well received and it will save people from going out of town so much too. “The tough economic times might hurt it some, but hopefully it will grow and people will receive it well. It’s something Provost doesn’t have – the garden centre part of it.” Troy Illingworth Cell: (780) 808-3183 Tim Sharp Cell: (780) 871-1276

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

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Alberta wins award for its $2 billion carbon capture and storage program Edmonton – Fresh from receiving an environmental award for its $2 billion commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, Alberta Energy is getting down to the task of selecting suitable proposals. The CCS program is part of Alberta’s climate change action plan recognized with an Aspen Institute award in March and will lead to three to five large-scale funded CCS facilities. The facilities will capture and store up to five million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2015 for a period of at least 10 years. “It’s a honour to be recognized for our commitment to the environment especially on a program like CCS which will help us develop our resources in a responsible way and meet our climate change goal,” said Jason Chance, director of communications for Alberta Energy. “It’s clear that for a jurisdiction of our size, we have made an unprecedented commitment of funding. With this funding, we plan to be world leaders in this technology.” Carbon capture and storage is a process that captures carbon dioxide emissions and stores them in deep geological formations. The CO2 will be separated from other emissions, then dehydrated, compressed and transported by pipeline to a storage site where it will be injected one to two kilometers deep into porous rock formations in Alberta. “We’ve received 11 proposals for CCS projects and we plan to move forward and we are going to begin to evaluate those,” said Chance. “We are only going to be supporting three to five. We expect to have those decisions made by the end of June.” Individual proposals were submitted by the March 31 deadline from ATCO Power, CNRL, Hydrogen Energy, Shell Canada, Sherritt International and Swan Hill Synfuels. Epcor presented two proposals. Partnership submissions were received from, Enoch Cree Nation/Teedrum, Enhance/ Northwest and the trio of TransAlta/Alstrom/TransCanada. Alberta announced it would contribute $2 billion for CCS projects in July 2008 as part of the government’s 2008 Climate Change Strategy. An additional $2 billion will be invested in promoting public transit to reduce the number of vehicles on the road and cut emissions. Alberta is committed to cutting total emissions by 200 megatonnes by 2050

– mainly through CCS. “It’s technology that is recognized around the world. It’s support by the United Nations and countries like Norway, United Kingdom and more recently by the United States,” said Chance. Near Weyburn, Saskatchewan, EnCana has injected more than seven million tonnes of CO2 into depleted oilﬁelds since 2000 with no adverse eﬀects. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change supports CCS technology as does the International Energy Agency and the International Panel on Climate Change. “With carbon capture and storage – it’s a key part of our climate change strategy and a key way for Alberta to reduce its emissions,” said Chance. “It will also help us develop Alberta energy resources whether it’s coal or oilsands or other products in a responsible way.”

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Pro Line Locators has a nose for By Geoff Lee Lloydminster –Pro Line Locators Ltd. based in Lloydminster is using a mobile electronic nose called the SuprSnifr to detect leaks of methane gas in pipelines. It’s also effective at sniffing out new business from cost-conscious gas companies in western Canada looking for a quick, safe and effective way to comply with tougher environmental standards. “Beside the need for compliance, if you have a gas leak, you are losing money into the atmosphere,” said Pro Line owner Russell Horbach. “If you fix it, you are saving yourself money.” Unlike traditional leak survey methods which require an operator to walk or drive over a pipeline on an ATV to detect leakage, Pro Line can easily conduct a survey in a truck from any road or access trail downwind of the target. The traditional tool of the gas leak detection trade is a flame ionization unit that detects flammable hydrocarbons like methane. The SuprSnifr is a super-sensitive flame ionization unit that Pro Line contends is 50 times more sensitive than any leak detection product on the market, including lasers or infra-red. Before the SuprSnifr was invented, a lot of gas companies would fly over the pipeline looking for visual signs of a gas leak where vegetation was dead or patchy. “We can find a leak the size of a pinhole in the pipeline which you wouldn’t ever notice,” said Horbach. The SuprSnifr components include an air sampling probe mounted on the front of a truck with a dashboard metre that allows the driver to read the concentration levels of methane in the atmosphere.

Air samples are pumped inside to the ﬂame ionization unit that will trigger an alarm when it encounters a minimum threshold of methane.

as 16 kilometres. “We drive the range roads, the township roads and the lease accesses,” said Horbach. “We don’t have to drive the pipelines. We just have to be downwind of a pipeline. You can be miles away and pick up a substantial leak. “Because the unit is so sensitive, we can drive right to the source. We usually identify the approximate location then come out with our hand-held locator. “We locate the line, flag it and walk along until we find the highest reading and that’s where we put a stake in the ground. Then we phone the gas company and tell them where the leak is. “Usually when a gas company finds out how effective it is, we will end up with an annual contract. Every year, we will go out and redo that field.” Pro Line is poised to expand into southern Alberta as their business partner, Gas Trak Ltd. owned by SuprSnifr inventors, Brock and Peter Wolski in Medicine Hat want to focus on research and development. “We want to move out of the operational end of it and provide the product and maintain and service it and focus on new research and development of products,” said Peter Wolski. “Pro Line is planning on taking over the field operations in Medicine Hat.” Further expansion into the U.S. is possible but Wolski said, “For now we are focusing on the gas producing regions of Canada. We already have an A Áame ionization unit includes a pump that sucks operation in Drumheller and we are currently workair into the unit to detect methane gas. ing on one in Grande Prairie.” Under the terms of its partnership, Gas Trak An anemometer is used to check wind direction owns the SuprSnifr equipment and Pro Line prowhile a simple formula indicates how far away the vides the trucks and crews. leak is. Large leaks can be detected from as far away ɸ Page A19

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detecting gas leaks and new clients ɺ Page A18 Pro Line was started by Horbach in 2001 as a company that located utilities but has been specializing in gas detection since teaming up with Gas Trak in 2006. Pro Line has 12 employees with four vehicles for utility locating and two vehicles for gas detection. “Business has been good,” said Horbach. “There is no end to the growth of the company. Every day there are more pipelines being put in the ground. They are getting old and there are more going into the ground. “We have basically added a new crew every year. Gas detection has a huge potential mainly because of the compliance issues. “Some of these lines have been in the ground for 50 years. As times goes on, they deteriorate and now they are starting to fail.” In steel pipe, leaks usually occur due to corrosion and plastic pipes can leak at the fusion point. In Medicine Hat, Wolski stresses the SuprSnifr is an important tool for due diligence because envi-

Russell Horbach checks the air sampling probe mounted on the front of Pro Line Locator trucks.

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ronmental agencies like the Energy Resources Conservation Board in Alberta are paying a lot more attention than they were before. “There are a lot of people who are looking for solutions to be able to do this in a cost-eﬀective way. We do provide it in a very cost eﬀective way,” said Wolski. “We haven’t had a chance to push it around the province yet.” The old method of surveying over the top of a pipeline can cost 15 to 20 times more than the SuprSnifr. “There are so many reasons to do this in any economic climate because gas is a valuable resource and methane is a greenhouse gas,” added Wolski. “Methane is 22 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It’s a global warming is-

sue. “Ninety per cent of the leaks that we find have no visual indication at the surface. You would never know they were there without instrumentation.” Pro Line is winning over new customers with their ethical commitment to detect and report other potentially costly or damaging leaks they find while on the job or travelling to a job. One time, while driving to Two Hills, Alberta, Horbach located and reported a huge gas leak in the Town of Beauvallon. “I got a hold of the county gas utility and the next day they were out fixing it,” he said. “They thanked us and along with that they said they would give us a chance to work some areas for them. “That’s the best advertising you can get.”

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Moody’s expands it construction equipment line By Geoﬀ Lee Lloydminster – Moody’s Equipment Ltd., a well-established farm and construction equipment dealer in Saskatchewan with outlets in Saskatoon, Unity, Perdue and Lloydminster has scooped a big shovelful of construction-related

business in the Alberta market. Moody’s acquired Belsher Equipment Ltd. in Calgary, Olds and High River March 1 to market its popular line of New Holland and Kobelco construction equipment to new industrial, construction and agricul-

tural clients in the Alberta oil patch. Belsher was an established dealer of New Holland farm equipment and New Holland equipment for light to medium duty construction in central and southern Alberta. “It seems like that area is a very busy part of

the country,” said Brent Mathison, Moody’s construction sales representative at the Lloydminster dealership on Highway 16. “Moody’s saw an opportunity to expand. Belsher was looking for someone to partner with and Moody’s was able to do that.” In Alberta, the focus for Moody’s Equipment will be on sales and service of construction machinery like the popular W190B wheel loader by New Holland for oilfield construction and farm work, and the best selling ED 195 Blade Runner excavator by Kobelco with digging and dozing capabilities. Moody’s expansion during an economic slump may seem surprising to some people but not Mathison in Lloydminster. “We are growing. We have been growing every year,” he said. “I don’t see any reason why we can’t continue to grow. Oil and gas and all of the commodities in Saskatchewan are never going to lose their demand. We need them. Supply and demand will make commodity prices go back up.” The dealership has recently added two new service trucks to its fleet and it also sells a line of tires, fluid products and tools. “We do sell a lot of skid steers and wheel loaders,” said David Cey, branch manager in Lloydminster. “Our Blade Runner is the biggest

Moody’s Equipment Ltd. took this New Holland skid steer unit to the Cattlemen’s Coral Crop Vision show in Lloydminster Jan. 20-21. Local branch manger, David Cey noted the company is expanding from its Saskatchewan base into the Alberta market to tap into oilÀeld construction equipment sales.

seller in trackhoes and excavator vehicles. We also sell our construction line to agricultural clients. Farmers and ranchers need wheel loaders in their feedlots.” Sales excitement was generated during Moody’s Equipment April Demo Days event held in Saskatoon and Lloydminster featuring New Holland and Kobelco equipment. The Saskatoon, Lloydminster and Calgary lo-

cations sell construction vehicles and equipment along with Moody’s line of agricultural equipment. Earlier this year, Moody’s in Lloydminster had an exhibit of a skid steer, a bi-directional tractor, a compact tractor and a high clearance sprayer at the Cattlemen’s Coral Crop Vision show at the Lloydminster Agricultural Exhibition. “We had a lot of interest from farmers at the show,” said Cey. “There are a lot of farmers interested in buying skid steers. “We would have brought in some bigger equipment, but the size of our booth limits what we could bring. We thought we would utilize the space with a skid steer and a bidirector tractor used by cattle ranchers. It’s a very versatile tractor. You can put a lot of implements on it. It is hydrostatically driven and goes the same speed forward and backward.” Moody’s also never misses an opportunity to showcase its oilﬁeld construction equipment at the Lloydminster Heavy Oil Show, held every two years.

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Diversity keeps Maverick rolling forward ects with Apache Oil and Pengrowth By Geoff Lee is this area.” Provost – Corrosion can be Maverick is completing some good for business. It is helping to single well tie-ins and installing pipekeep Maverick Oilfield Services. lines for Apache and is working for Ltd, based in Provost, busy field inPengrowth on a variety of gathering stalling and replacing steel pipeline system pipelines. for oil and gas customers. Maverick also has a shop in Maverick’s specializes in pipeGrande Prairie where the bulk of line and facility construction along Maverick’s crews are busy working on with a transportation division and a plant expansion job for Advantage has enjoyed steady growth since Oil and Gas Ltd. basing its operation in the busy Pro“We are at the tail end of those vost area. projects and we will be down to 15 to “This is a very established area 20 per cent of our workload during so there is a lot of maintenance,” spring break up,” said Dieser. said Richard Dieser, Maverick’s Maverick is marking its 31th year vice-president of operations. of business in 2009. The company was “This is a high corrosion area formed by Mike Schnell who is the due to the amount of H2S. There is a lot of steel pipeline that has to be Richard Dieser and Fred Reinbold rolled out a 30-ton picker pulling a 2,000 barrel principle majority owner from Lloydminster. He set up the business in upgraded. We are geared to trench hydraulic tanks trailer. Macklin, Saskatchewan for a couple and install three inch to 12-inch diof years before relocating to Provost in 1994. ameter pipeline.” “It was more advantageous to work in Alberta at that time,” explained DiesMaverick does a lot of well tie-ins for gathering systems in the area and they can install steel and corrosive-resistant fiberglass and composite pipe that more er. “Maverick has had steady growth throughout its existence. When I started 18 companies are using. They also build oil batteries and compressor stations. “We have a diverse customer base in heavy and light oil and gas and we have a years ago, Maverick was a small maintenance company. Now, we have 70 to 100 quality control program for pressure piping that is certified for use in BC, Alberta employees and sub contractors and an 8,500 sq. ft. shop.” Maverick also has a mud division in Consort that warehouses and supplies and Saskatchewan,” said Dieser. Another Maverick edge over the competition says Dieser is the company- drilling mud to rigs in the area. Dieser says when Schnell launched Maverick, the business was based on prowide belief in practicing a high level of customer service and a corporate commitviding all of the services needed when the service rig moved off the site and that ment to safety around the shop and in the field. Despite the economic slowdown that has idled a lot of energy companies, includes their transport division. For maintenance work, trucks haul pipe to the well site and trucking services Maverick is keeping busy in the short term, thanks in part to that corrosive Proare needed to haul lease equipment and provide picker services and carry pump vost oilfield. “We are one of the most fortunate ones,” said Dieser. “We have about 60 to jack sets. ɸ Page A23 70 per cent of the workload that we would like to see. We have a couple of proj-

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Diversifying Maverick

One of Maverick’s most versatile vehicles, says Richard Dieser, is this trackhoe for installing pipelines.

ɺ Page A22 “Our trucking division has expanded and we are moving a lot of oversized loads in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia for various oil companies,” said Dieser. “The potential for growth is there because it’s become more economical. We see more equipment built in the city instead of the field and our ability to move that is getting better.” Maverick owns and operates pickers from 3-tonne to 42-tonne capacity and is one of only a few companies to own a 10-ft. wide double drop trombone trailer with an expandable platform. The vehicle fleet is supported by tank cradle tractors that can muscle large 3,000 barrel tanks along with winch tractors and highway tractors. Maverick also supplied one of their of-

ficer trailers for the ongoing construction of the new Provost Regional Activity Centre and will also make a cash donation with inkind services to help the project along. “I believe as a strong community, we have a lot of amenities, “said Dieser who has lived in Provost since

1988. “We offer a small town flavor and it’s a place where everybody knows everybody.” Dieser’s other hat is his role as the secretary of the Kinsmen club that he says is one of the few Kinsmen’s clubs to show an increase in membership over the past year. The Kinsmen club

has also donated an initial $25,000 toward the $2.5 million fundraising drive for the new activity centre that will help bring new people to the area. “I think Provost will continue to see growth, “said Dieser. “There is still some drilling to be had for oil and gas companies.”

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A24

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Unlike the meteor which sprinkled

Economic development ofÀcer Bert Roach is happy to talk about the town’s residential subdivision plans.

By Geoﬀ Lee Provost – Bert Roach, the economic development oﬃcer for the Town of Provost double dares everyone to take part in the Smash ’n’ Splash mud bog and demolition derby June 19-21, sponsored by the Kinsmen.

This wildly popular event is an opportunity to get down and dirty with your pickup truck and a chance for local car washes and other retailers to clean up at the cash register. Roach can also tell you clean sheets are available at any of the new and

existing motels in town for overnight stays and there is a wide selection of good places to eat. If you can’t make it to town that weekend, there are plenty more opportunities like the Oilmen’s Technical Society golf tournament on June 5. There could be a lot of talk on the fairways about how Provost’s oil and gas economy is driving growth in the area. The Town of Provost issued a record $7. 6 million in building permits in 2008 that was a banner year for the town as oil peaked at $147 a barrel. “We were reaping the beneﬁts of council’s decisions and the economic boom that was going on,” said Roach. A hot oil economy led to an expansion at the emergency entrance at the Provost and District Hospital and the construction of a $2.1 million eight unit condo for seniors

that is due to open soon. There were also new housing starts. The town got a boost in 2008 from the construction of Enbridge’s Alberta Clipper pipeline and ConocoPhillips’ Keystone Pipeline that both run through part of the Municipal District of Provost from the Hardisty Terminal. “Both of these pipelines created a lot of activity and a lot of jobs,” said Roach. “We deﬁnitely had our share of spinoﬀs from it. Fuel sales were up at many of the gas stations and a lot of crews stayed in hotels locally. “What that also trans-

lated to for the MD was a nice increase in the tax base and there was $10.8 million worth of building permits issued compared to $4.5 million in 2007.” A giant ﬁreball from outer space also lit up the night sky around Provost in November, 2008 sprinkling the area with some valuable meteorite fragments and a sense of optimism. “We are hoping that means we have a really bright future ahead,” remarked Roach. So far, so good in 2009. Despite the recent economic turndown, the unemployment rate for Provost has risen only

marginally from 3.0 per cent last November to 3.2 per cent in April. “Because of the balance in the local economy, we have been insulated from a lot of layoﬀs,” said Roach. “We know there are some excellent opportunities here and the community has been well managed.” The historically strong oil and gas sector in the area also prompted the MD to contribute $5.4 toward the $12.1 total cost of the Provost Regional Activity Centre that is under construction and will house a hockey rink and six lane outdoor pool. ɸ Page A25

Crews have started work on a new $12.1 million recreation centre in Provost.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

the town: Provost is on the rise ɺ Page A24 A fundraising committee is hoping to raise $2.5 million from the sale of naming rights and sponsorships to companies in the oilpatch. “Anything that helps the town helps us,” said MD Reeve Allan Murray. “We realize that recreation facility is just as much for our constituents as it s is for the town. It is very important to have this facility to retain people, particularly the young people. “The oil and gas sector has kept our young people here. The oilfield has provided incomes and helped to subsidize our farmers. I have neighbors who farm parttime and have full-time jobs at batteries or other associated things with the oil patch. “The significance of oil and gas is huge on the assessment side. It’s made a huge difference from taking us from a basically agricultural area into diversification into oil and gas. It’s made a huge difference to our tax base.” The MD is due pass a bylaw to adopt the Rosyth Area Structure Plan for the orderly expansion and development of the oil and gas terminal in the northwest part of the district near Hardisty. When Provost’s Mayor Ken Knox was first elected 22 years ago, agriculture was the mainstay of the economy, but steady growth in the oil and gas industry forced Provost to annex 200 acres a few years ago for residential and commercial and industry expansion. A 140-acre commercial strip fronting Highway 13 has attracted new hotels, fast food restaurants and oilfield supply stores. A new R & R Inn is nearing the finishing stages of construction. “Last summer, we purchased another 80 acres on the east side of town and developed about half of that,” said Knox. “We have a commercial greenhouse and garden centre going in there.” The grand opening of the centre called the Sugar &Spice Floral and Garden Ltd is planned for June. New residential lots have been serviced and are ready for sale in the latest 60- acre addition to the Paul-

gaard Estates in the southeast part of town near the golf course. “More of our growth has all happened in the last five years,” said Knox who is the human resources manager for Maverick Oilfield Service Ltd. in town. “The area has been directly affected by the exploration and the drilling. Provost and the MD are working on developing the tourism economy of the area and hunting is high on the list. “We have very active hunting in the area,” said Murray. “It used to centre on birds and ducks but now our deer populations are growing. “It’s becoming more tourist friendly from the hunting side of it. It’s a good business for the motels and restaurants at seasonal times in the years.” The economic development office is working on a tourism strategy to identify, develop and market attractions such as the unique geo-gothic style Rosenheim church south of Provost. Another point of interest is the interpretative centre operated by the Bodo Archaeological Society. The new Provost and District Museum is also a must-see attraction with its link to the television show the Re-Inventors that airs in Canada on the History Channel. “We have long term agreement with a Regina company called, Partners in Motion that produces the show. All of the inventions from that show will be on display at the Museum.” “We are working with the Town of Provost campgrounds to implement a destination marketing fee to raise the marketing dollars,” said Roach. “Part of the strategy is doing some cross promotion with surrounding communities including Macklin to attract more visitors. “We have a really good relationship with Macklin. I would describe the relationship as partners. With the two communities being so close, it gives everybody a bit more diversity and more to do.”

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Ken Knox who works for Maverick OilÀeld Services Ltd. has been the Mayor of Provost for 22 years.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Husky funded for carbon capture storage Lloydminster–Husky Energy Inc. could cut its carbon footprint in half at its Lloydminster upgrader and ethanol plant with the results of a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project supported by federal government funding. Husky is proposing to inject CO2 into heavy oil reservoirs near the upgrader with an eye to storing up to 400,000 tonnes of CO2 a year– or almost 50 per cent of the annual emissions produced by the upgrader and ethanol plant. The project calls for waste CO2 to be puriﬁed, dehydrated, compressed and injected into heavy oil reservoirs. The Husky CCS project is one of eight projects in Western Canada that will share $140- million in funding from the federal government’s Natural Resources ministry announced in Calgary in March. Other CCS projects approved for funding were submitted by Arc Resources, Enhance Energy Inc, Spectra Energy Transmission, Enbridge Inc, TransCanada Corp, Epcor and TransAlta Corp. Funding will range from $3-million to $30-million per project with about $6-million going toward Husky’s CCS project according to Husky spokesperson Graham White in Calgary. “We are doing very well in terms of funding and

clearly in terms of government interest. It’s moving and the research has gone very well,” said White. “We are interested in it for the potential for enhanced oil recovery and also for environmental reasons. “In the Lloydminster area, we produce a signiﬁcant amount of heavy oil. The opportunity for sequestration into reservoirs exists and is a potentially practical alternative to handling emissions.” The main source of emissions from upgrading heavy oil to 70,000 barrels a day of low-sulphur synthetic oil is natural gas. Natural gas is also used to produce ethanol from wheat and to heat heavy oil with steam to stimulate reservoir production. “We do have some cold extraction but mainly it’s a steam process that also requires the use of natural gas which produces emissions from that operation,” said White. The Husky project will be led by Brian Watt, Husky’s manager of operations and engineering for heavy oil and gas with the knowledge CCS is a proven, technically viable, environmentally safe means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions according to the industry. Husky belongs to the Integrated CO2 Network (ICO2N) of companies that is working with the Al-

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berta and federal governments on the development of a CCS system to capture, transport and store carbon dioxide. Husky is working with the ICO2N on CCS for its joint Sunrise oilsands project with BP 60-km northeast of Fort McMurray. “Husky is exploring what the infrastructure for CO2 and carbon capture might look like,” said White. Sunrise has estimated reserves of 3.2 billion barrels of bitumen from the Fort McMurray formation. Other ICO2N companies working with Husky on CCS are Agrium Inc, Air Products Canada Inc, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, ConocoPhillips Company, EPCOR, Imperial Oil Inc., Keyera, Nexen Inc., Shell Canada Ltd., Sherritt International Corp, Suncor Energy Inc., Syncrude Canada Ltd, Total E&P Canada Ltd and TransAlta Corp. Husky may also partner with a research agency like the Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada on its Lloydminster CCS project. “We will see what that looks like for us speciﬁcally down the road when we get full approval of the project,” said White. “We are still at the proposal and research phase. “Certainly within this area there is a lot of excitement and there has been for some time because of the potential of it. “We have reservoirs that are good candidates for enhanced oil recovery and some CO2 would be injected (for storage) into reservoirs that are not in use. Some are close to the upgrader which makes it practical.” While it’s too early to put timelines on the project, the government is asking the project proponents to begin negotiations toward formal funding contribution agreements to set the conditions for funding delivery. All of the projects were selected for funding were in response to a call for proposals issued by Ottawa under a $230-million fund created in 2007 for the development of technologies to reduce emissions for the production of energy.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Apex Distribution builds Provost base with customer and community service By Geoff Lee Provost –There may be an economic downturn, but Apex Distribution Inc. in Provost opens its doors at 6 .a.m. with a fresh pot of coffee in keeping with the company focus on customer service. That approach has helped Apex become a leading distributor of oilfield production and drilling equipment in western Canada with 38 locations. The company started in 1999 with three locations adding a small shop in Provost in 2000 and is now one of the largest oil and gas supplier in the west. Apex was named by the National Post in February as a recipient of one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies business awards for companies with revenue over $10 million. While business sales have slowed throughout the oilpatch in 2009, Provost store manager Dwayne Chopek said, “We are still keeping our head above water. “With the slowdown, everyone is looking for ways to maximize production. We can guarantee on time delivery. We understand where our core is and that’s service.” Dallas Scott from Harvest Energy can attest to that. He dropped by to purchase some belts for wellhead drives and told the Pipeline News Apex people “are friendly and the parts are

Dwayne Chopek, manager of the Apex Distribution store in Provost hopped aboard a parked forklift for an easy photo.

here when I need them.” He also claims there’s a fresh pot of coffee every 20 minutes. Other major Apex customers in the area like EnCana, Husky Energy, Crescent Point Energy Trust and Pengrowth Energy Trust rely on Apex to supply them with tubing rods, pipes and valve fittings for the construction and maintenance of pipelines. In this cost-conscious market, Apex stocks a variety of poly-lined tubing that prevents tubing wear downhole and they carry a selection of reconditioned rods and special yellow band tubing. The Provost shop has more than $1.2 million in parts inventory including a selection of oilfield engine parts, and safety clothing and equipment such as fire extinguishers. With 22 stores in Alberta to order from, Apex can bring in parts quickly using their main carrier, Provost Freight Lines and deliver parts quickly to the job site using their own trucks. Chopek got his start with Apex in 2004 as a sales agent and parts supplier and was named store manager in 2008 following a relocation in 2006 to their 7,200 sq. ft. shop on the commercial strip fronting Highway 13. “That gave us a bigger yard and allowed us to diversify,” said Chopek. “We supply production tanks from 50 to 2,000 barrel sizes. ɸ Page A29

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Service behind Apex Distribution Provost base ɺ Page A28 “Up to this year, growth has been substantial,” said Chopek. “I attribute that to customer service. Another reason for our company expansion is this is a good place to work. It gives us that option to hire the best. The people are very dedicated and it’s a good team atmosphere.” Chopek is in charge of 11 employees. Attracting the best employees to Provost could be easier in the future as Chopek is the leading the community fundraising for a new $12.3 million regional activity centre that will feature a full-size hockey rink and a 25-metre outdoor swimming pool. “We want to be able to attract the best people to town and not lose out,” said Chopek. “People are looking for amenities to attract new people.” Chopek has a fundraising goal of $2.5 million but in the current economy he said, “It’s a bad time to ask but a good time to build. Hopefully, everyone remembers the good times are coming back.” Chopek is also a member on several committees for the Town of Provost where he has established roots with his wife and three children. “Provost is a good place to raise a family and with the new recreation centre, kids will have the

opportunity to pursue a range of indoor recreation,” he added. “There is a need for this in the community.” The fundraising includes the sale of naming rights and Chopek will use his local oilfield contacts to get the ball rolling. Chopek was born in Provost and grew up on a farm in nearby Altario. He enrolled at the University of Alberta and left before graduating to work for Bodo Oilfield Maintenance Ltd. in the Provost area. He also worked for Encana as an operator then joined Apex for what he called “a change of pace. It looked like a good place to work.” Chopek is the current vice-president of the Provost Oilfield Technical Society that held its 30th curling bonspiel last November and is gearing up for its 26th annual golf tournament June 5 at the Provost & District Golf Club. The event alternates between Provost and nearby Macklin, Saskatchewan. “I’m expecting it to be full with the lack of work,” said Chopek. “We are expecting it to be slow until spring break up is over but there is always something to do. Busy is always good.”

Customer Dallas Scott displays a ring of belts for drivehead wells that he bought at Apex.

Dwayne Chopek holds up a hefty weld Àtting in stock at the Apex store in Provost.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Sask-Alta to share basket of energy research with top U.S. lab

Regina –One of the roads to U.S. energy security conveniently runs through research centres in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory has signed co-operative agreements in both provinces to research and develop valueadded sources of energy including heavy oil, shale oil, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and nuclear. “One of the reasons we are excited about partnering with the Idaho National Laboratory is

because they explore each of those areas of energy right through to development and studying the feasibility and economics,” said Energy and Resources Minister, Bill Boyd. The partnership in Saskatchewan, signed in March, could also include collaborative research in carbon capture and storage – with an eye to economic development for all sources of energy. The Alberta Research Council will continue to research oil technology including information about the use of nuclear power

under the terms of its MOU signed with INL last year. The initial phase of this collaboration has generated a paper, commissioned by Alberta s Nuclear Power Expert Panel which provides background scientiﬁc and engineering information that will help inform industry, public and policymakers. One of the main goals at INL is to bring about a renaissance in commercial nuclear energy in the United States,” said Dr. Bill Rogers, INL’s associ-

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ate laboratory director for energy and environment. “We are also interested in energy security for our nation and that involves other types of energy beside nuclear. We are interested in all types of renewable energy. We do little research in solar but we do a lot in geothermal, hydro, wind and particularly biomass. In the signing announcement, Dr. Rogers stated, “This Memorandum of Understanding with Saskatchewan is very important to Idaho National Laboratory because it expands our collaborative relationships on western regional energy interests and concerns. “This agreement also permits us to contribute independent validation of technologies and approaches to advance energy development for Saskatchewan.” The INL was established in 1949 and currently employees 3,800 people in a number of complexes and testing facilities near Idaho Falls. It is operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by Battele Energy Alliance, a consortium of research institutes and universities. “Clearly the U.S. is signaling that they want

to lessen their dependency on Middle East and Venezuelan oil,” said Boyd. “As a result of that they are looking to Saskatchewan to help ﬁll some of that void. “We feel we can do that and we are excited about the possibilities as a result of that. Economic development is the whole purpose of the research agreement. “The idea is to develop best practices and to collaborate with the Idaho National Laboratory and the Saskatchewan Resource and the Petroleum Technology Research Centre here. “We will be working toward demonstration projects and discussing best practices in the various jurisdictions and look for development from there. There is a lot of potential and we will be moving at speedy fashion. “The Idaho National Laboratory is the preeminent energy research institute in the U.S. This is a great opportunity for ongoing work with them.” The MOU between INL and Saskatchewan was co-signed by Enterprise and Innovation Minister Lyle Stewart who said in a news release, “The exchange of ideas and expertise between INL and our research facilities will foster new approaches and advances in energy development.” The INL is considered the top laboratory for nuclear energy research in the United States and Dr. Rogers believes INL has the capability to help Saskatchewan add value to provincial uranium exports. “Areva (French nuclear company) was considering a site for an enrichment plant in Saskatchewan and Idaho Falls and they choose this area as the site,” said Dr. Rogers. “There are a lot of areas of collaboration where we might help Saskatchewan in their quest to move up the value chain on their natural resources,” he said. The groundwork for the MOU was set at a meeting in 2008 of the Western Governors Association in Jackson Hole Wyoming where Premier Brad Wall let it be known Saskatchewan wanted to add value to it exports of natural resources. “There was contact

made and discussions made about how we can work together,” said Boyd. It became obvious to everyone that there were lots of synergies that could be achieved here. The INL was also motivated to link research with Saskatchewan and Alberta based on what Dr. Rogers calls alternative hydrocarbon fuels. “Alberta, Saskatchewan, Idaho and Montana contain world class reserves of unconventional hydrocarbons that include oilsands, oil shale and unconventional uses of coal,” he said. “What we are trying to do is develop stronger relationships with our partners to the north in Alberta and Saskatchewan.” The INL signed an MOU with the Alberta Research Council in 2008 to provide them with expertise on how nuclear could help produce the oilsands in exchange for information on ARC shale oil research. “We were interested in their wealth of knowledge in the way they were already producing the oilsands because that is relevant to what we’re trying to do with production of oil shale in our country,” said Dr. Rogers. The MOU signing included a tour by INL and Saskatchewan oﬃcials to energy research sites and projects around the province including EnCana’s CO2 sequestration plant near Weyburn. “I was very impressed with the Weyburn CO2 project,” said Dr. Rogers. “Texas has been using CO2 for well stimulation for over 40 years but we’ve never combined that with carbon capture. We are very interested in all aspects of that. “That’s going to be crucial to how we exploit our coal resources in this country and how we produce our primary power from coal.” The tour also included a visit to the University of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Research Council in Saskatoon that has a low-power SLOWPOKE-2 research reactor. There were also tour stops at the Geological Subsurface Laboratory and the Petroleum Technology Research Centre in Regina.

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Oilpatch helped fund one man’s dream Macklin –No matter which way he looks at it – backwards or forwards – Robin Cosh made the right decision in 2006 to use his oilpatch savings to buy a lumberyard that’s become a growing Rona franchise in downtown Macklin. Cosh had worked six years for Norcen Energy followed by 10 years operating three coil tubing trucks with a partner before seizing the chance to master his own destiny. Today, Cosh and his wife Lori are planning to purchase a chunk of frontage along Highway 14 to start construction on a new 10,000 square foot Rona Building Centre this fall, but the location is not without regrets. “We wanted to be closer to town because we draw fairly heavily in town,” said Cosh. “It’s nicer to draw people closer to downtown. You can have lunch and grab your groceries. “We’re going to lose that when we go up there. We needed highway frontage and that was the best highway frontage we could get.” That move is well timed as Cosh reveals most of his customers are in the market for home renovation supplies as home renovation sales peak and oilfield activity slows. He reports his former coil tubing partners tells him “things are slower than hell and we are off and running. “We have four new homes to build this year already and it’s only the beginning of March. By the beginning of April, we will probably have six or seven homes to build this summer.” Coincidentally, the 2009 federal budget just happens to offers homeowners a maximum tax credit of $1,350 for eligible home improvements expenses valued between $1,000 and $10,000. Looking back, Cosh says there were a number of events that led him to get out of the oilpatch and shift gears with the money he saved. “I needed to spend more time with my family. The other factor was I could afford it by then. “There were some good boom years in the oil industry. Towards the end of those boom years in 2006 thing were starting to a slide a bit. The south country was slow

and natural gas was off quite a way. There was good money and it was time to get out,” he said. “It also helped that the former owner closed the store January 1, 2006 and by the time Cosh reopened it that November, the demand was really strong. “We went from a mom and pop operation to a year later tripling our sales. Now we have five full time and four part time employees.” When Rona learned they were talking about building a larger store, they offered them a franchise and the rights to operate a Rona Building Centre when construction is complete. Over lunch at Carol’s Eats and Treats, the 42 year-old Cosh says he knew virtually nothing about hardware when he took the plunge, but he did knew there was no turning back. “There were a lot of nights when I would go home and couldn’t get to sleep. You lay you head down and the wheels start turning,” he said. “You can make any business successful. It’s hard work more than anything. This is a lot more fun that working in the oilpatch. “The oilpatch is all hard work. The types of trucks I was running were lazy man work. We were working downhole servicing gas wells. Some of the service industry trucking can get pretty tedious. Working for an oil company can be monotonous.” Cosh also serviced wells for Norcen and before that he worked on road construction in southern Alberta. In fact, he says he and his partner ran their coil tubing operation out of Provost and other parts of Alberta before Saskatchewan opened the doors for energy companies with new legislation. “The oil didn’t stop at the border but some of the activity did,” he said. “The company, I worked for, Norcen Energy, were up and down the Alberta border. They had stuff from Chauvin right down to Monitor. Now, there is more activity on this side.” For Cosh, the positive part of his oilfield experience was being able to fund his dream and ensure success. “I would have been

able to buy the store but I wouldn’t be able to increase the inventory to what we’re at today without having the money that brought out of the oilpatch,” said Cosh. He also knew that leaving the oil industry meant “it’s a pile of knowledge to pack up and throw away too. It’s 16 years of knowledge and I will never use most of it again.” At ﬁrst Cosh says it was weird serving his

former oilpatch buddies at the hardware store but now he’s okay with it. “Everyone works in the oilpatch at some point in time. Of course your customers are those people.” Cosh say Macklin has “grown impressively” over the years because of the oil sector and he thinks the town could use a newer hotel and some type of manufacturing plant not tied to the energy sector to add economic diversity.

Opportunity continues to knock for former oilpatch worker Robin Cosh who used his savings to buy a hardware store that’s become a Rona franchise.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

PIPELINE NEWS Saskatchewan’s Petroleum Monthly

B-Section May 2009

Just how do you capture CO2? Story and photos by Brian Zinchuk Regina – There’s a lot of talk about capturing carbon dioxide – but how do you do it? And, more importantly, how do you do it on the same mammoth industrial scale by which it is produced, such as from a coal-fired power plant? The International Test Centre for CO2 Capture (ITC) at the University of Regina is working on exactly that problem. Raphael Idem, Ph.D, is one of the professors on the facility’s research team, and his office is one of the closest to the pilot plant. There is a conference room overlooking the CO2 pilot plant. It’s part of an overhead structure that runs down the centre of the large, relatively new structure, functional since 2003. The conference room leads into the control room, and then researchers’ stations beyond that. Stuff of fiction The whole area could easily pass as a set from a science-fiction set, with its industrial design, and pod-like architecture. Windows all around overlook the pilot plant, on the east side. Don Gelowitz, process engineer for the plant, is in that pod, keeping an eye on multiple monitors and the plant itself. He can be found later, drawing samples off various take-off valves. “We are trying to optimize the CO2 capture process,” explains

University of Regina Professor Raphael Idem, one of the researchers at the International Test Centre for CO2 Capture. Behind him is the pilot plant used to test carbon capture methods.

Idem. That means reducing costs, footprint, and energy for the whole process. Doing so means trying different things to determine which parameters make a difference. It could be the use of different

chemicals, ﬁnding a way to synthesize chemicals or mixing diﬀerent chemicals. The recipe is a guarded secret. In the pod we meet some Brits from Doosan Babcock Energy. A look around reveals a number

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of Koreans, from Doosan Heavy Industry, on site. “You have Koreans and Brits learning from Canadians,” is the comment. They are there, working with ITC, part of a continuous training

process to understand carbon capture in order to build and sell associated technology. Those crucial chemicals are the ﬂuids that capture the carbon dioxide. The concept is to capture the carbon di-

oxide post-combustion, basically sucking it out of the tailpipe before the flue gas is released into the atmosphere. But first you need a tailpipe. Source Go downstairs to the main level. In a room behind a heavy door is the power plant powered by a natural gas microturbine generator/steam boiler. This may not be a coal-fired plant, but it does the job. The power plant produces steam to turn the turbine, and puts out 32 kilowatts of energy. It produces one tonne of carbon dioxide a day, just a tiny sliver of a fraction of what a fullscale power plant puts out. But then again, this is a pilot plant. The exhaust gas goes through a blower, and is sent into the pilot plant. Columns The exhaust gas enters just above the floor, where it can travel through one of three different columns. Only one column is used at a time. Each contains different materials. By having multiple paths, the equipment operators can service the two units not in operation. The column is a separator. The aqueous fluid enters the top of the column, filtering downward. The exhaust gas enters the bottom, flowing upward, through the fluid. The carbon dioxide dissolves into the liquid separator, forming a solution with the carbon dioxide, which is now in liquid form. ɸ Page B2

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Capturing CO2?

ɺ Page B1 sell the CO2 above the cost of steam, This liquid exits at the bottom of you make a profit.” the separator, passes through a heat exIt makes up approximately 70 per changer, and then enters at the top of cent of the operating cost, he adds. the regenerator. What’s left The regenerator uses steam from After going through this process, the power plant to boil off the carbon what’s left coming out as effluent is dioxide from the liquid. The liquid is oxygen, nitrogen, and a small amount then reused, after passing through the of carbon dioxide. heat exchanger again. Carbon dioxide The carbon dioxide accounts for 13-15 is then piped off as a percent of the flue gas gas. stream – 6,000 tonnes A condenser cools a day at SaskPower’s it down and knocks Boundary Dam powoff much of the water er station unit 6 for reuse. Second model It’s possible to A second, smaller maintain 99 per cent model sits beside the or more of the fluid, main pilot plant. Steif the process is well ven Marcia, a graduoperated, accordate student in Engiing to Idem. Years of neering, is working experience and re- Normally, no one is allowed on a 12-inch square search have helped to to take pictures at the Inter- column. minimize this waste. national Test Centre for CO2 This model has It would be possible Capture. clear tubing, allowing to retain 100 percent you to see the various of the fluid, but there’s forms of media used some evaporation. inside the separator. Idem explains that an important At the end of the tour, Idem notes part of their research is minimizing the University of Regina can only afhow much steam is used. Power plants ford to pick a few focus areas to speare reluctant to give up steam, he says. cialize in. They picked energy as one of “The most expensive part is the steam. the focus areas. There is a cost for steam for every “In hindsight,” he says, “it was the pound of CO2 you produce. If you can right choice.”

Engineering masters student Steven Marcia is working on a 12 inch square column, a smaller capture pilot plant.

Process engineer Don Gelowitz takes samples off the CO2 capture pilot plant at the International Test Centre for CO2 Capture.

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Automated controls add value to National Oilwell’s arti¿cial lift systems Lloydminster –Flick on the sun and pump oil. Monoflo National Oilwell Varco is adding to its global reputation as a leading manufacturer of artificial lift systems with the development of value-added automated products like a solarpowered crank rod pump built in Lloydminster. “It’s an electric motor with a right angle gear box and it has a 12inch stroke and it’s run off solar power. When the sun’s out it runs,” said Scott Watson, product line manager of automated solutions. “It’s for those remote applications where there is no power and it’s tough to get rigs or swabbing rigs in. It’s designed around shallow gas de-watering coal bed methane wells.” The solar powered pump is a new test product but it’s helping to create a buzz for the automated control components that Monoflo NOV can build into its product line of PC pump systems, surface equipment and hydraulic rod pump systems to maximize oil production. “Automation is for any type of surface equipment such as pump jacks, transfer pumps or compressor packages, that requires variable speed control or torque rod control,” said Watson. . “We build software for PC pump applications. We take a controller and build PC pump software around that application and make

sure we don’t exceed rod torque and that we have different startup speeds and algorithms built into the systems.” The software also allows an oil company the ability to log on through a cellular satellite network and view their wells in real time. “The main benefit is the ability to optimize and automate a well,” said Watson. “At today’s oil price the idea is to produce the maximize volume of oil with the least amount of operating cost. By having some sort of variable speed control with smart software you can take advantage of that software. “The customer gets a reduction in equipment wear and tear because we only need to run as fast as the criteria are set for.” Monoflo NOV’s automation shop can also add value to variable speed drive pump jacks with different software that offers oil and

Product and sales executives Pat Harris and George Walker pose behind this display of a 17 series pump.

gas similar cost-savings beneﬁts to PC pump controls. “The pump jack software allows the operator to keep track of the system without hav-

ing to babysit the wells to see what’s going on,” said Watson. “For pump jack applications it’s pump ﬁllage.

“The operator can make decisions on his own by using the software. It reduces maintenance costs and utility

costs because you only pull in the amount of power required to do the work.” ɸ Page B4

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

NOV’s arti¿cial lift systems ɺ Page B3 The automation shop has also designed improvements to a linear rod system designed for coal bed methane applications with a 56-inch stroke limit with a 25,000 lb. stroke capability. “The benefit is it doesn’t need a large footprint so it can be mounted to the wellhead,” said Watson. “If there is no power, we can provide a gen-set to run the controller. “It also has 100 per cent pump-off capabilities. Everything is mounted nice and clean and neat onto the wellhead.” Monoflo NOV’s value-added line of artificial lift components are sold throughout Canada and

to an ever growing international market. “The international market is strategic. The international component of what we do is going to become a bigger segment of what we do but obviously we will keep ties with our Canadian business,” said Pat Harris vice-president of engineering and product lines. “What’s driving sales on the international market is exposure – taking some of the technology we’ve developed here in Canada and moving it to markets in the world.” “Right now with the economy slowing down domestic sales area typically quite slow but what is driving sales is quality products and quality ser-

vice. We built some great products and we really stand behind our products. Those two things attract business.” George Walker the technical sales manager for Canada says the hot sales products are Monoﬂo NOV’s PC pumps, the hydraulic wellhead drives, the automation products and the Corlift. “Our Corlift replaces the traditional pump jack,” said Walker. “The reason for that is there is no impact on the ground as it mounts directly on the wellhead and we can control the strokes per minute of the rod string with a hydraulic system.” The Corlift is ideal for low volume wells from one to 10 cubic metres a day. It can provide 18,000

lb of lift. Parts for Monoflo NOV’s PC pump components area sourced from England and Argentina and assembled and tested under the direction of production line manager Shawn Cameron. “We time and phase the product together in order to increase the lift capabilities and match the customer’s requirements,” said Cameron. “Then we test each pump to the required efficiency before it goes to the field.” The shop has the capability to produce 25 PC pump systems a day and the demand is strong. “PC pumps are one of the largest growing forms of artificial lifts in the world next to ESP (electric submersible) conventional pump jacks because of the efficiencies of the pumps,” said Cameron. “The system is more efficient. It’s cost effective and you can pump solids. Sand is an issue around Lloydminster so you are able to pump with a PC rather than a conven-

Scott Watson an automation manager adjusts a dial on a solar-powered crank rod.

tional which can’t handle large amounts of sand.” The PC pump can also pump a large volume of ﬂuid than conventional pumps. Monoﬂo NOV distributes its products to more than 40 locations in Canada for domestic and international sales from its new 100,000 sq. ft. shop. The spacious shop opened September 2007 with an improved safety program under the direction of safety and health coordinator Tom Holden. “We have a company

safety program that has 17 elements to it which includes everything from orientation to protective equipment to employee responsibility,” said Holden. “Most employees are well trained. Every hazard that is associated with the tasks that we perform has been identiﬁed and control measures have been in place for everyone. Employees are involved in the safety programs. That gives us better buy in and helps us to control the hazards out there.”

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

NOV’s customer appreciation tournament scores

These happy “no name” clients of MonoÁo National Oilwell Varco wait their turn in the shootout. Both photos by Geoff Lee

Lloydminster – Some would say a bad day of hockey beats a good day of work. That was the case for employees from Husky Energy, Buﬀalo Resources, Nexen Inc., Devon Energy and CNRL who took part in National Oilwell Varco‘s customer appreciation tournament at Commonwealth Centre in Lloydminster April 3. It’s become an annual event that scores positive reactions from players like Denis Blaquiere, a product line manager for new surface equipment at NOV. “It’s about getting our customers in here and having a good time,” he said. “It’s a tough go out there nowadays and it’s just good to relax. It’s always good. You gotta relax once and awhile. Everyone gets a day oﬀ to have some fun, drink some beer and eat some food. “We’ve been doing it for about four years. I don’t know who came up with it but it’s been a success every year since.” If anyone needed a reminder, NOV is a manufacturer of PC pumps and wellhead drives with value-added automation features in demand by customers throughout the world.

“It’s an opportunity to thank our customers,” said George Walker, NOV’s technical sales manager for Canada. “Employees are having a bit of fun in the shootout.” The event includes three games per team with a fun shootout for a 50/50 pot of money that helped to motivate Tyler Kushniruk, a production engineer to Husky, to sign up – for only part of the day. “I wouldn’t call it a day off,” he said during the shootout. “I worked this morning and took a break and played some hockey. I’m done for the rest of the day so I get half a day off.” As for his thoughts about NOV doing this for clients like him, Kushniruk thinks “It’s awesome. It gets everyone out and networking with other people and building relationships. That’s the main key nowadays. It’s also fun. A little competition doesn’t hurt anyone these days.” Ditto the enthusiasm from Tyler Peat from Devon Energy.” It’s good to get out and meet different people and have fun and relax. It’s fun so far. We won our first game. This is the second year I have played. I have to go back to work.”

Goalie Dean Mori from Husky lets in a rare shootout goal.

Pipemaster OilÀeld Services of Marsden, Saskatchewan manufactures and sells the Tank Cradle Trailer for moving tanks under license from me, Murray MacDonald, of Lloydminster, Alberta. I have a patent on the design and function of this trailer. I have recently enforced my patent against two companies, one in Saskatchewan and one in Alberta, who both made or used such trailers without my permission. These companies paid signiÀcant amounts to compensate me for patent infringement. This notice is to advise the industry that I will pursue any similar infringements the same way. For more information please contact me.

Murray MacDonald Pipemaster OilÀeld Services 306-826-5550

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Fatboy PC pump pulls its weight in heavy oil¿eld tests Lloydminster –An unconventional PC pump should have a memorable name. The fatboy PC pump that debuted in 2003 caught the interest of a sold out audience at the April Lloydminster Petroleum Society luncheon. The speaker was Mackenzie Gusnowski, the lead production technologist for Calgary-based Caltex Energy Inc.’s heavy oil assets where the fatboy looms large. The PC pump has been instrumental in the development of Cold Heavy Oil Production with Sand (CHOPS) in the heavy oil fields around Lloydminster. The fatboy was introduced to the market by Weatherford in 2003 and raised the bar for performance over the previous benchmark set by the 15-1400 pump. “I think it’s great,” said Gusnowski. “I think it’s the way of the future. Before long, everyone will be going for fatboy pumps. They work especially well in heavy oil. It’s slowly becoming more and more popular. It’s still in its Ryan Rowan from the Lloydminster Petroleum infancy stages.” Society leads the applause for his introduction of Gusnowski said the idea behind his talk was to “try guest speaker Mackenzie Gusnowski. to communicate some of the successes that I’ve person- it’s more aggressive in nature than a conventional PC ally seen with the non-conventional pump and also to pump. generate some insight into the further development of “It has a larger cross-sectional area so the majors models of that nature. and minors are optimized to have the maximum inflow He noted that some of the challenges using conven- as possible.” tional PC pumps with CHOPS are the high volume of In technical terms, Gusnowski said one of the imsolids concentrations and high viscosity oils. proved performance factors of the fatboy is improved “The fatboy was developed because we were seeing cavity fillage as a result of the short pitch length and the a lot of poor pump fillage,” he said. “We weren’t getting large cross-sectional area. as good a pump fillage as possible. We were leaving oil “That’s the area where the fluid has to enter the in the ground on a day to day basis. Profitability was pump,” he explained.” improved by adopting it.” Another performance benefit of the fatboy is the “With pump fillage, it’s important to run at op- balance compression fit, leading to lower operating timum efficiency for the given fluid that you’re in and torques. for the abrasives that are produced through that pump,” “This is a function of how the majors and the miGusnowksi said. nors of the rotors interact with the majors and minors The audience learned that a basic PC pump includes of the stators,” said Gusnowski. “You want to have the two main components – a single helical alloy-steel rotor same percentage of compression in the majors and the connected to a rod string and a double helical elastomer- minors versus different compressions. lined stator attached to the tubing string. “Lower startup torques are one big advantage of it “In that, you have your majors and your minors of and lower operating torques as well so less horsepower the rotor and the stator, the pitch lengths and the swept is needed.” angle of the pumps,” said Gusnowski A third technical advantage of the fatboy is its ag“The fat boy has quite a bit lower swept angles so gressive swept angle.

“What you’ve done is taken the angle of the rotor and lowered it so more of the energy is focused on moving the fluid upwards versus outwards,” said Gusnowski. This feature leads to lower torque requirements. “You have to think of the cavity itself,” explained Gusnowski. “It‘s like an orifice or a pressure limiting device so the bigger you can make that, the less flow losses you will have going through it.” Gusnowksi contends the fatboy leads to more productivity per day and more productivity per horsepower. “Because you run at a lower torque, you are running at lower horsepower. You also see longer times between failures so you can maintain the well on production. The proof of the pudding, so to speak, came in 2007 at Fishing Lake Alberta in what became a case study of the fatboy’s ability to yield improved operating metrics. Pearl Exploration and Production Ltd., where Gusnowski worked at the time, tested a fatboy with Tierra Alta Production Systems Ltd. to boost production from 160 barrels a day. Pearl was the operating company and Tierra Alta provided the production technology expertise. “The oil was there, but the challenge was to get it out,” said Gusnowski. “We determined the viscosity of the oil was causing low pump fillage.” The solution, he said, was to go with a fatboy pump with the larger cross- sectional area and shorter pitch to enhance pump fillage and maintain sand production. “All in all it just resulted in higher operating efficiencies of each pump,” he said. “We integrated a Tierra pump (manufactured by Tierra) and had a 250 per cent improvement in real time operations.” In fact, production increased to 9.5 barrels a day per producing well and overall production increased from about 170 to 250 barrels a day. “That was the first real buy-in from one whole pool of oil,” said Gusnowksi. “Sometime, you will integrate something slowly and you don’t have the right quality control on it. “In this oilfield, we changed out everything to this (fatboy) design and maintained the same operating practices and got the results we were hoping for.”

OPTIMIZE PRODUCTION The Eagle Traveling Valve

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Together • Decreased Swab Costs after Fracs in the Cardium & Belly River by$ 28,000 per well. • Increased oil production by 47 % In the Browning South Frobisher pool and reduced pump changes from an average of every 9.5 months to 24 months as of this printing. Production went up and the company slowed their pumpjack down. • Increased pump run life in the Montney from 6 pumps run, with the longest run life of 24 hours, to 20 months continuous producing. Prior to the installation of these products the company considered abandoning the well due to sand and gas. • Increased pump run life in the Bakken formation. The company was pulling a pump every month or so. Since the addition of these two products no pump changes have been recorded and the wells continue to produce. • Increased pump life on a well in the Ostracod from every 1 to 3 to months to continually producing for 10 months (as of the date of this printing) & increased production volumes by 327 % .

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

It was a grand Grand Opening for CE Franklin

CE Franklin Ltd.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jim Baumgartner VP of commercial initiatives joined sponsored Olympic speed skating silver medalist Denny Morrison and Mayor Ken Baker for a ribbon cutting to ofĂ&#x20AC;cial open the new building that houses the Full Tilt Field Services division.

CE Franklin Ltd.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jim Baumgartner, VP of commercial initiatives presented a cheque for $10,000 to Penny Manners, manager of development for the Lloydminster Regional Health Foundation. The money will be used to purchase three video game play station centres for sick kids at the Lloydminster Hospital.

Receptionist Dawn Nikiwski greeted dozens of invited guest to the grand opening of CE Franklin Ltd.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new 54,000 sq. ft. shop built and owned by Full Tilt Field Services. The event included tours. Emile Bourassa, branch manager of Full Tilt Field Services, a division of CE Franklin Ltd. shows off a Peterbilt service truck. Full Tilt is the western dealer for IMT bodies, cranes and compressors.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Research aims to clean up Alberta’s oilsands carbon corridor Edmonton–The Alberta Industrial Heartland known as an oilsands corridor of carbon dioxide emissions is due for a clean-up. A carbon capture and storage (CCS) research and development project aimed at injecting and storing C02 into the oil-rich Redwater Leduc reef is underway by ARC Resources Ltd and the Alberta Research Council. “ARC resources has the lead and would drill some wells and get some data and ultimately start injecting C02 into the reef and monitor what happens,” said Brent Lakeman, the project leader and manager of carbon and energy for the research council. “We are in charge of developing that research program and working with ARC resources and seeing it implemented. We are doing the geological review of that reef. “Our initial calculation tells us the reef could store one gigatonne of C02 – that’s one billion tonnes of C02,” he said. “That is 20 year’s worth of emissions.” The underground reef formation has a total area of 600 sq. km and extends along the Fort McMurray to Edmonton corridor, a possible route for a CO2 pipeline. Due to the industrial expansion in the Heartland Region of oilsands processing fa-

cilities and existing and planned upgraders by BA Energy, Shell Canada, North West Upgrading, Petro-Canada, Total E & P Canada, and StatoilHydro, the area could become one of the biggest emitters of C02 in western Canada. The fact that most of the oilsands processing plants being built in the Heartland area use natural gas to convert bitumen to crude oil make the area very suitable for CCS. “Our work is to get the geologists working and the hydro geologists working and people who have seismic data and characterize that formation to better estimate how much C02 you could store within it,” said Lakeman. “We expect the C02 will stay within this formation and then we will begin work toward a natural field demonstration pilot.” The ARC project is one of eight demonstration CCS projects that will receive up to $140-million in funding from the federal government with an aim to a develop CCS to a commercial level to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “There is a lot of talk that we need to move ahead with C02 storage so we have been looking at various sites in the province and this is one that leading scientists identified a few years

This is a schematic of a generic carbon capture and storage project. Photo courtesy of Alberta Research Council

back as a place where we should be starting,” said Lakeman. “Imperial Oil was the ﬁrst company to explore the reef beginning in 1948 and they sold their property to Arc Resources in 2005 who want to test the use C02 to enhance the recovery of conventional oil out of that reef. “ If a CO2 ﬂood at Redwater is proven to be commercially viable, it could potentially boost production by 15,000 boe per day of production. ARC’s current production in Redwater is 4,300 boe per day of high netback light oil. Redwater is one of the largest oil pools in Canada with 1.3 billion barrels of original oil in place. “That same location is also a great site for C02 storage,” said Lakeman. “This reef is about a kilometre below the surface and a portion of it has oil that you can still recover.” “About 90 per cent or more of the reef is a big saline water component where all of the saline water is trapped in rock pore space and that can be used for C02 storage. “We are just wrapping up this geological review and pulling together all of the data to understand this reef structure a little bit better and determine the areas to inject C02 that would make the best

Brent Lakeman Photo courtesy by Alberta Research Council

sense. “To determine injection sites you have to go through porosity, permeability and injectivity and all of the typical things you would look for if you would drill for oil as well.” The CCS projects were selected in response to a call for proposals by Ottawa with a $230-million fund set aside in 2007 to support the development of technologies for clean energy production. “Governments have indicated they expect new projects in the future to be C02 capture-

ready,” said Lakeman. Since July 2007, oilsands operations in Alberta have been required to reduce their carbon intensity by 12 per cent over 2003-2005 levels but Lakeman believes new oilsands processing facilities would require a lot more than that. “There is an expectation that we will be moving beyond a 12 per cent intensity reduction to a much larger amount in the future. “We have to get these project moving using a lot of government money. That’s to learn from each other. It’s too expensive for companies to move ahead on these projects on their own. The federal government is making an investment.” The federal government is providing between $3 million to $30 million of funding for each CCS project. The Alberta government has

announced plans to allocate $2 billion to fund three to ﬁve large scale CCS projects in its 2009 budget. “Industry is also investing,” said Lakeman. “Hopefully, we can get a number of projects underway in the next few years and get the costs down more. “The science community talks about a 60 to 80 per cent reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions over the course of this century. “To do that it’s nice to do conservation and renewable energy but those on their own won’t be enough. We need to have technologies like this that allow for much larger emission reductions. “They are expensive but we have to start learning about them and using them so the cost comes down like any other technology that comes on the market.”

ARC Resources Ltd plans to use CO2 for an enhanced oil recovery pilot project in the Redwater reef. Photo courtesy of ARC Resources Ltd.

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

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Boyd optimistic over uptick in April land sales revenue Regina â&#x20AC;&#x201C; File the results of the April sale of Crown petroleum and natural gas rights in Saskatchewan under a mixed good news, bad news folder. The province generated $11.7 million in land sales revenue, nearly double that for the ďŹ rst land sale of the year in February that generated $6.3 million. Despite the uptick, this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s April sales total was well below the record $265 million in bonus bid revenue recorded in April 2008 when oil prices were on an upward tear. Combined April and February sales in 2008 raised $462 million. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The global economic slowdown has contributed to an 85 per cent reduction in land sale revenues for the three western provinces over the ďŹ rst quarter of this year,â&#x20AC;? said Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd in a news release. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not surprising that our numbers would also be tracking lower, and we knew weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be hard pressed to match the record year we had in 2008 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a phenomenal year for the oil and gas industry in our province.â&#x20AC;? Boyd failed to note that drilling activity is also down this year with the economic downturn but conditions for the energy sector are nowhere near as bad as they were in the dark days of 1981. That year, the economy was hit with slump in drilling activity resulting from the eďŹ&#x20AC;ects of the National Energy Program, a global recession and a glut of oil that cut total land sales revenues for the entire year to $37 million in Saskatchewan, $589 million in Alberta, $61 million in BC and just $2 million in Manitoba. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are optimistic on industry activity over the balance of the year, given the investments companies have already made in land acquisition and the overall attractiveness of our oil and gas resources,â&#x20AC;? said Boyd. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Industry showed a lot of interest in what was a relatively small number of parcels on oďŹ&#x20AC;er and we expect to see greater bidding activity in the next sale.â&#x20AC;? Aprilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sale included ďŹ ve petroleum and natural gas exploration licences that sold for $2 million and 176 lease parcels that attracted $9.7 million in bonus bids. The Weyburn-Estevan area led the land sale with sales of $9.6 million. The Kindersley-Kerrobert area was next at $971,000, followed by the Lloydminster

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area at $602,000 and the Swift Current area at $509,000. The highest price paid for a single parcel was just under $1.2 million. Canadian Coastal Resources Ltd. acquired this 2,840-hectare exploration licence near Lampman. The highest price on a per hectare basis was just over $23,500. Badger Pass Minerals Inc. bid more than $762,000 for a shallow rights lease of a 32-ha parcel above the Bakken formation, six kilometres south of Stoughton. The next sale of Crown petroleum and natural gas rights will be June 8, 2009.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Willing to experiment: Â&#x201E; By Brian Zinchuk Regina â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The premier likes to talk about all the resources Saskatchewan has. But actually capitalizing on those resources takes a lot of work and research. The provincial body whose job is to conduct some of that research is the Saskatchewan Research Council, or SRC. The SRC has about 350 employees in total, with a little over 50 in the energy division. Regina is the host for that division, with labs and researchers. There is also a pipeďŹ&#x201A;ow centre in Saskatoon. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We mostly concentrate on enhanced oil recovery

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techniques for most Saskatchewan oil types â&#x20AC;&#x201C; heavies in Lloydminster, Viking at Kindersley, light and medium in the southeast. Our latest eďŹ&#x20AC;ort has been in the Saskatchewan oilsands way north,â&#x20AC;? explains Ernie Pappas, who heads up the energy division of SRC. His oďŹ&#x192;ce is in the suite of oďŹ&#x192;ces that is home to the Petroleum Technology Research Centre. A brass desktop model pumpjack bobs in the background as he talks. Oilsands simulator The oilsands eďŹ&#x20AC;orts includes trying to develop a recovery process for the Axe Lake oilsands, being developed by Oilsands Quest. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in the process of testing several diďŹ&#x20AC;erent EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery) techniques,â&#x20AC;? he says. That includes building a three-dimensional scale physical model that will be unique in its abilities for testing EOR techniques. This will be a second simulator of its type for the SRC, the ďŹ rst being the Solvent Vapour Extraction Laboratory. The ďŹ rst is scaled to do Lloydminster heavy oil. The new one will be rought the same size, but can do solvent and thermal processes, according to Pappas. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We received $1 million from Oilsands Quest to help us get on our way,â&#x20AC;? he says. That money came less than a year ago. The new simulator will hopefully be up and running by the end of 2009, Papass forecasts. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You do what the reservoir dictates, ďŹ nding that process requires testing.â&#x20AC;? Willing and able In the past, SRC has done steam ďŹ&#x201A;ood investigations, again, using a model. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve also investigated ďŹ&#x201A;u gas and CO2 for heavy oil. É¸ Page B13

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

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Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) to assist in moving heavy oil through flow lines. “This is brand new. We hope to find a field test in the field this or next year.” Where now? Where does the SRC go now? “If you take a look at the EOR techniques we concentrate on, they are all low greenhouse gas, low environmental impact,” Pappas points out. “It doesn’t make much

sense to burn half a barrel to get a barrel. “Thermal? It may be the only way to go. But there may be ways of improving it, i.e. collect ﬂue gas from producing steam.” That ﬂue gas could then be re-injected into the reservoir. “This lab here, the SRC was responsible for providing most of the analytical and engineering numbers for the original

CO2 ﬂood with PanCanadian at the time,” Pappas says of the WeyburnMidale project. “SRC’s been doing this for well over 25 years. We’ve been involved in many successes. Typically it takes an investment in R & D and quite a bit of time to come up with something that looks like it came up overnight. “We’re willing to experiment, and that’s our job,” he says.

Ernie Pappas heads up the energy division of the Saskatchewan Research Council. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

ɺ Page B12 They are looking at chemicals such as surfactants, to see if that improves oil recovery. In heavy oil, they are looking at in situ combustion, one of several paths they have taken. “In heavy oil, we’ve really investigated lots of techniques,” he says. “That’s the real prize for Saskatchewan. There’s so much heavy oil in place that isn’t recoverable right now. For instance, with the current standard – Cold Heavy Oil Production with Sand (CHOPS), you can get recovery rates up to 20 per cent. “We certainly work on that, too,” he says. About three quarters of the SRC’s eﬀorts are in heavy oil, the remainder in light oil. Things always change, he notes. For example, the Viking has Saskatchewan’s best quality oil, but poor recovery. It’s a common plight, he notes. “That’s what makes us so resourceful in Saskatchewan.” Fifteen years ago, Alberta produced about ﬁve times what Saskatchewan did in conventional oil. Now we are even in production volume of conventional oil, he says. “We’re enjoying almost historical record production right now.” Sask without SRC?

When asked where would we be if there was no Saskatchewan Research Council, Pappas gives the following example: The first horizontal well in Saskatchewan was drilled at Tangleflags, east of Lloydminster. When that well was producing at its peak, it alone accounted for one per cent of Saskatchewan production, despite being one of 33,000 wells in the province. That was a stunning success, he says. The SRC was involved in that first horizontal well, developing the model, monitoring

field performance, predicting a production profile. Horizontal wells have increasingly become the norm, particularly in the southeast. But the SRC is not involved too much in multi-stage fracing research. The service providers are doing their own work, he explains. Pipe flow The pipe flow lab in Saskatoon is a unique facility, able to deal with pipes from one inch to 20 inches in diameter. They are investigating slurry transport right now, where water is used

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Office - Kola, MB. 204-556-2464 Dan O’Connor Operations Manager 204-748-5088

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

In the active oil industry, Heavy Construction Careers training beneﬁts employers and employees By Dawn M. Barker For more than 70 years, the Saskatchewan Trucking Association has represented the united voice of the transport industry in the province. Along with its other goals, the STA provides insurance and commercial truck training services, and most recently, has begun to offer heavy equipment operator training through its Heavy Construction Careers (HCC) division. This division was conceived several years ago as a project which would supply skilled operators to the quickly

growing heavy construction sector, while providing year-round employment for qualiﬁed and competent STA instructors to deliver both types of programs. These courses had previously been conducted mainly during the summer months.

the sector in which they wish to specialize, and during the course will receive both in-class and hands-on training.

Training Manager Jim McQuoid and Operations Manager Gary Hildebrandt provided insight into the Today, HCC provides year-round Heavy Equipment program and its potential beneﬁt for industry employOperator (HEO) courses in ﬁve, seven and ninet week ers and workers. curriculums throughout the province. Students choose

and deliver heavy equipment operator training. Last year, the looking to work in an area they’ve always been interested in Q: WHAT IS THE MAIN OBJECTIVE OF THE HEAVY CONSTRUCTION CAREERS PROGRAM? STA created a permanent HCC location in Prince Albert, and this but never had the chance to pursue. The ‘average’ candidate, in terms of description, is spring, registration will begin once again for classes in Regina A: “Our goal is to try to prepare Saskatchewan residents for employment in all aspects of the construction industry before Canadians from the “have-not” provinces move in to fill those positions,” McQuoid said. “We believe in employing Saskatchewan people first. “Our province, at this point, is really coming into its own. It looks like we’re in a place where we’re going to have long term natural resource development in all sectors of the province, and that, coupled with oil, gas, infrastructure, and commercial and residential construction will put the heavy construction field at the forefront in terms of demand. There is a growing, very real need for more operators.”

Q: WHEN DID YOU FIRST HAVE AN INKLING THAT THE NEED WOULD BE THIS GREAT, AND HOW DID IT COME ABOUT? A: The STA began several years ago to partner with Regional Colleges and SIAST, in their respective jurisdictions, to develop

and Saskatoon. “We are also looking for a training site in the midst of Saskatchewan’s major oil producing areas,” said McQuoid.

Q: WHO IS THE ‘TYPICAL’ CANDIDATE FOR HEAVY EQUIPMENT OPERATOR TRAINING? A: Applicants must be at least 18 years old and have a valid Class 5 driver’s license. The ideal candidate would have an interest in hands-on activities, and the maturity to pursue this avenue as a career. “Playing in the dirt – whether you’re 18 or 80, it’s something that a lot of people have always wanted to do,” McQuoid said. He added that the organization has been actively promoting the HEO program in high school career fairs, although that prospective students could just as easily be workers in their 30s or 40s with children at home, who want a career change, or even empty nesters in their 50s who are

a little harder to portray. Student profiles vary extensively in terms of age, gender and ethnicity. Interest in the career path is not specific to the male gender. Women are represented in most classes of students the STA has certified, and Hildebrandt said they are generally the first graduates in each group to find employment. He added that the course represents a great opportunity to First Nations and Métis students, providing them with training crucial to a successful career. McQuoid added that recent conflicts between First Nations and petroleum pipeline companies in Saskatchewan have stemmed from the lack of jobs available for untrained people. With this course, he said, graduates would fit well into available positions.

F more information on the Heavy Equipment Operator course, contact For Ji Jim McQuoid at (306)569-9696, Gary Hildebrandt at (306)260-5430, or visit the website at www.heavyconstructioncareers.ca.

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Q: WILL THERE BE JOBS AVAILABLE AT THE END OF THE HEO PROGRAM? WHAT IS THE ORGANIZATION DOING TO ENSURE THAT STUDENTS FIND JOBS? A: The STA knows that training without the potential of a career is self-defeating. The process begins during the pre-enrolment period, when prospective students receive counseling to match their interests with a certain sector of the heavy construction industry. HCC representatives advise them of areas which are projected to have a heavier demand for people, and which ones are less likely to provide employment post-graduation (for instance, uranium mines tend to hire locally, and so would not be as good a prospect for a non-local person). “We’re moving to match up employers with graduates,” McQuoid said. “We want to meet with human resources professionals in order to market the type of graduate we’re trying to achieve.” He added, “A lot of people who graduate from the HCC course are interested in starting their own business, so we’re producing not only employees but a lot of budding entrepreneurs as well.”

Q: TRADITIONALLY, HEAVY EQUIPMENT OPERATION HAS BEEN SEEN AS A SEASONAL EMPLOYMENT FIELD. HAS THIS CHANGED? A: “Deﬁnitely,” McQuoid said. “Certain sectors, like road building, are seasonal, and others, like working up on the ice roads in the north, can be done only in the winter, but many other industries, like the oilﬁeld industry, coal and uranium mining and potash production are in operation year-round.

Q: IS THERE FUNDING AVAILABLE TO ASSIST HEO COURSE STUDENTS? A: Sponsorship may be available through a variety of initiatives including GDI Training and Employment Inc., Tribal Councils and First Nations Bands, or CanSask Career & Employment. Links to these are listed on the HCC website.

Q: HOW EXACTLY DOES THE COURSE WORK? A: “New students are coming in every month,” said Hildebrandt. “There are varying class lengths of ﬁve, seven or nine weeks, so at any one time you have new students meeting up with those who have experience. There is peer mentoring, as well as training by our very qualiﬁed instructors. It’s a mixture of class time and hands on experience. Our goal is to promote employability and a work ethic together, to teach those elements right along with pulling the

levers and operating the machinery. We want our students to learn how to do the work, how to be safe doing it, and just as importantly, how to enjoy their careers.” The entry level 232 hour course covers all the basics, including construction site safety, safe loading and unloading, stake reading and proper tie-down procedure, along with Applied Certification on two machines. The 328 hour intermediate course includes an additional 80 hours of instruction time which can be applied in a variety of areas, from an increase in on-machine operating time to advanced techniques, in order to increase their employability. The 424 hour advanced operator course augments all the skills learned in the intermediate course with reading and understanding all aspects of survey and construction staking and transit and level operation. The additional course time gives students the opportunity to develop a proven track record for punctuality, productivity, work ethic and job responsibility that make them stand out over other job applicants. Hildebrandt added that the advanced operator program graduates undertake certification on two types of machines, with the requisite 80 hours’ time per machine, leaving close to 300 additional hours to cover instruction on safety, theory, terminology, service provision and maintenance, and extra seat time on the machinery. “The fact that students have been given assistance in choosing their focus area prior to the class means that they can pick their preferred machine and concentrate on that. The result is a work candidate who is more skilled than a beginner. They really stand out at job interviews. With machine operation, it’s sort of a ‘use it or lose it’ thing. You need to have that exposure to the machinery until you’re extremely proficient.” He said that during the course, students are assigned machinery in pairs, with one student operating the machine while the other engages in other areas of study. The equipment used is late-model machinery, corresponding to the equipment used in the sector for which the student is training. “When you run our equipment that’s what you’ll be finding in the industry.”

A: “There is a significant emphasis on safety training in the courses. Graduates come to employers safety-ready, having received a whole week’s instruction in safety tickets covering a broad spectrum of issues, such as First Aid, CPR, H2S, Ground Disturbance, Road Builder Safety Training, Construction Safety Training or Petroleum Safety Training, depending on the area of study, and standard WHMIS. “In addition, the course instructs people on how to take part in WHMIS site-specific meetings, toolbox meetings and identifying work safety hazards. We have the ability to tailor the course to include additional safety tickets if they are applicable to the entire class, such as Confined Space or other requirements,” Hildebrandt said, adding that the courses offered conform to Enform standards.

Q: WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR THE PROGRAM, AND FOR THE STA? A: “We have the ability to provide custom training for various sectors in the heavy construction industry, providing specialized safety programs, or training on speciﬁc equipment,” McQuoid said. We’re looking at combining heavy equipment and trucking courses, since a lot of employers have said they want people who can do both. We’re trying to let employers know that we’ve got a superior product here, one that will really beneﬁt them. We’re accepting applications for spring courses in Saskatoon and Regina and Prince Albert this year, and increasing the number of graduates the program is producing. The success rate of the program to date has been phenomenal.” “What we’ve been seeing is a lot of really enthused, excellent operators coming out of this course and into the industry. “Overall, we plan to remember who we are as an association, and to focus on the fact that that’s who we’re here to serve as an industry. When you see the solidity and the growth that is happening here in the province, it’s very gratifying. We’re here for the long haul,” he said.

Q: AS IN MANY HEAVY EQUIPMENT SECTORS, THE OILFIELD HAS SEEN AN INTENSIFIED FOCUS ON SAFETY. DO THE HEO COURSES REFLECT THIS?

Advertorial

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B16

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Leased operator allowed for expansion

Tyler Helfrick, a mechanic apprentice, works on an air dryer from the pit at Dempsey Laird Trucking in Halbrite.

Mechanic Nelson Canete does a safety inspection at Dempsey Laird Trucking in Halbrite.

Story and photos by Brian Zinchuk Halbrite – In most communities, a business whose workforce is the equivalent of 55 per cent of the population, that would be the biggest business in town. Well, Dempsey Laird Trucking in Halbrite isn’t the biggest in town, but they are substantial, especially for a village of 98. Dempsey Laird Trucking Ltd. was founded by Marion Laird. He came to Halbrite in 1960, and went on his own in 1978, when he bought out the Halbrite operation of RE Line Trucking. The company is a family business, with three of five siblings active in the operation. They include Trevor Laird, Nancy St. Jules, and Ione Scott. Earl Duncan is the operational manager. “We haul crude and sale water and provide truck for service work,” says St. Jules. Their fleet includes around 45 company trucks, and another 13 leased operator unit, bringing staffing to about 55. Most of those people come from Weyburn and Midale. Having leased operators is a relatively new development for the firm, accord-

ing to St. Jules, who says, “We just started lease guy when the boom came, in 2006.” “At one time, we couldn’t get the equipment to keep up even if you had the money.” Most of their work in the Weyburn, Midale and Stoughton districts. Trucking has picked up the slack while flow line capacity is built for new wells. While a lot of people are sitting during spring breakup, Dempsey Laird i not. “We haven’t laid anyone off,” she says, noting it is common for them to work through breakup. “Most of the RM around here don’t shut down. We can still haul partial loads.” The company built a fenced in dugout behind their shop in Halbrite late year. It gives them their own fresh water source for service work. It’s been a bit of a lake this spring, having been a slough before. St. Jules grew up here, playing on that slough. She says the village of about 100 people felt the impact when the school closed in the late 1980s. It just lost it post office at the end of March, making it a real pain to mail an oversized letter. But there is a rink and hall, she notes. St. Jules anticipate an active summer, noting, “I think it look good. It may not be as booming as it was.”

Bruce Hodgkin: (306) 861-7800 Dean Hodgkin: (306) 861-2604 Adam Walliser: (306) 861-9722

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We’ve all heard of bedroom communities, like Emerald Park for Regina, or Warman for Saskatoon. But have you ever thought a village could have its own bedroom communities? The 2006 census says Halbrite has a population of 98. Yet, at its peak last year, about 300 people were employed at the four main businesses – Brady Oilﬁeld Services (148), Carson Welding and Maintenance (85), Dempsey Laird Trucking (55) and NewAlta (12). That’s down a bit now, but not by much. For comparison – for Saskatoon to have a similar proportion of its workforce living outside it borders, nearly all of Saskatchewan would have to be its “bedroom communities.” The management of these companies say they draw staﬀ primarily from Weyburn, Estevan and Midale. That would mean, the humble village of Halbrite, with its Corner Gas-style cafe on the main drag, has its own bedroom communities – Weyburn, Estevan, and Midale.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

-Advertorial-

B17

Ener-Test makes commitment for spill prevention and auto-gauging. Ener-Test Well Servicing and Rentals Ltd., a 100% Saskatchewan Rentals and Service company, has recently announced that they have signed an agreement to install spill prevention devices and

electronic tank gauges on their complete Áeet of 400 barrel rental tanks. Once this project has been completed, all Ener-Test clients will have the option to receive their daily tank

Áuid levels automatically at user programmable intervals. All data from the 400 barrel tanks is transmitted via satellite through a secure web server and made available to qualiÀed personnel for downloading

to production accounting. In addition, the new system will provide each 400 barrel tank with spill prevention and expandable options to meet other Áuid control requirements. De-

signed for single well sites or sites utilizing multiple tasks, this self-powered system is proven to reduce costs and streamline operations for Ener-Test clients. Installations on the 400 barrel tanks will be coor-

dinated with existing tank rental clients during 2009 and with a target completion date of 2010. For more information please contact us at (306) 487-2536.

Ener-Test Well Servicing & Rentals Providing contained solutions that allow Oil & Gas producers to comply with industry regulations when working with noxious vapors. QualiÀed supervisors, equipped with a full line of pressurized well testing equipment ensures a safer workplace and cleaner environment. Accurate well completion and workover reports include gas volumes, pressures, temperatures, swab reports, Áow tests, etc. • Portable Áare stacks • Portable seperators • Seperator packages • 400 bbl tanks • Trucking services COMPLETE SYSTEMS: • 22m3 pressure vessels rated at working pressures from 75lb to 205 lb. • 3000 lb rated Áow line and intake manifold. • High volume transfer pump complete with 3” load line. • 4” meter run complete with gas chart recorder. • 4”x40’ mobile Áare stacks complete with 4” Áare line, propane supply and ignitor. • Mobile ofÀce to manage well data c/w power plant

Pressure Vessels: Dale (306)861-3635 Tanks & Trucking: Lee (306)487-7411 • Instrumentation: (306)487-2536 Providing solutions for a cleaner environment.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Test bed needed in SE Sask. Estevan - Canadian Advanced ESP held its grand opening in Estevan on Mar. 26. They actually opened the new shop in a brand new building on Nov. 1, 2008. The shop has two

bays and three full times staﬀ – Chris Istache, Ken Farley and Karry Biette. The ESP stands for Electric submersible pumps. Instead of a mechanical drive via a rod string from the surface,

Chris Istache, left, and Karry Biette display the ESP test bench at Canadian Advanced ESP’s new Estevan location.

an ESP has wires running downhole to the pump at the bottom. Canadian Advanced ESP also hands horizontal pumping systems, or HPS. “Probably the biggest upside is the range you can obtain with a variable frequency drive,” says Biette, noting it’s a prime reason for employing ESPs. One of the key features of the new shop is the test bench. They claim its the only test bench in Saskatchewan for ESPs. It’s also capable of testing horizontal pumps. “This system is capable of testing up to 24,000 bbl/day pumps,” says Stew Puris, who handles tech sales out of Calgary for Canadian Advanced ESP. Also on display was a variable frequency drive and remote control telemetry options, a new feature for the company, coming out in late 2008. “I’m monitoring a well

in Sundry right now,” he notes. “This is the first time I’ve seen the brochure. That’s how new it is.” Local important “We need to be here,” says Puris. “We’re just getting fired up.” He was the one who approached shareholders to set up in Estevan. In November, 2007, they talked to different producers in the area, asking “What if?” The response was, “If you build it, they will come.” However, it the importance of being part of the community was noted. “I had the go-ahead before Christmas.” “This was his dream,” acknowledges Mike Kruk, VP of sales and marketing. “Operators wanted a test facility in the southeast.” “We talked to a lot of people here. It was a common thread, they wanted a faster turnaround. Having a local facility means shaving shipping days to Edmonton

oﬀ any service work. “The goals is the fastest turnaround possible,” Kruk says. Canadian Advanced ESP is a privately owned company. Puris says, “I was asking them to make a big investment here and to have faith in being local. We’re here now, and we’re here to stay.” “We compete on ESP contracts all over the world,” notes Biette, but adds, “We’ve got three locally-based

people that are here, that have roots in the community, and aren’t going anywhere. We’re not here for 10 minutes.” Biette personally grew up in the oilﬁeld, with a father who’s involved with Future Energy, an uncle who owns Supreme Oilﬁeld, and another uncle who used to own a hotshot company. Now he coaches the local SJHL team, the Eagle Drilling Estevan Bruins.

It’s so new, the Àrst time Stew Puris saw the brochure was at the grand opening of the new Estevan Canadian Advanced ESP location, and he works for the company. Canadian Advanced ESP has recently added remote telemetry to its units.

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WE’RE THINKING BIG • Pipeline Construction • Facilities Construction and Installation • Horizontal and Directional Drilling • Environmental Reclamation and Remediation • Plant and Facilities Maintenance • Welding & Fabrication Mike Brasseur, Division Manager (306) 634-4554 (306) 634-4664 Cell: (306) 461-8111 Email: mbrasseur@bcpl.ca Web: bigcountryenergy.com

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

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Fort Gary Candace Kjarsgaard lugs some brakes at Fort Gary Industries in Regina. The Regina location held an open house on April 23. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

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ty Sector Council (ESC) and the Canadian Solar Industries Association (CanSIA). The survey shows the highest growth rates are expected to fall into four job functions â&#x20AC;&#x201C; project management (178 per cent), installation (146 per cent), sales (120 per cent) and manufacturing (107 per cent). To meet the demand, the survey identiďŹ es a number of training streams needed to ensure an adequate labour force to support the optimistic growth targets. ESC and CanSIA plan to work with industry and stakeholders to develop policies and programs to ensure the industry has access to qualiďŹ ed and trained hu-

man resources to sustain its growth. The survey was administered when signs of the severe global economic downturn were already apparent. Since then, U.S. President Barack Obama announced his direction regarding environmental programs and the Ontario Government released its Green Energy Act. The ESC is an independent, not-for-proďŹ t organization funded by the Government of Canada with support from business, labour organizations, educators and stakeholder associations. CanSIAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mission is to develop a strong Canadian solar industry and promote a market for solar energy worldwide.

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B20

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Packed house for 50th Photos by Brian Zinchuk

The Oil Wives Club and Desk and Derrick Club helped out in a number of capacities for the 50th Annual Estevan OTS bonspiel, here stafÀng the door prize table.

The Estevan OTS wanted to make their 50th annual bonspiel a big one, and part of that was the sold-out banquet.

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Bernie Bjorndalen of the Estevan OTS welcomes everyone to the packed house banquet for the 50th Annual OTS Bonspiel.

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Troy Smith Sales & Service Representative Wright Road, Moosomin Saskatchewan, Canada S0G 3N0 Cellular 306.435.7095 Facsimile 306.435.2416 Email tsmith@grenco.com Toll Free 1.800.661.3945 HEAD OFFICE | PLANT 3710 - 78 Avenue Edmonton, AB T6B 3E5 T 780.468.2000 F 780.468.2070 1.800.661.3945

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• OilÀeld • Environmental • Water & Sewer • Basements • Demolition • Lowbed Trucking

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Weekly drop off now available: at Prairie Sky Water - Main Street, Stoughton. And at Davis Meats - 201 - 5th St., Alameda

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

B21

Reduce Equipment Monitoring Costs Acutec Systems has completed the expansion of their self-powered Messenger 1100 Ex Satellite Communication product to substantially reduce the cost of monitoring oilfield equipment. The Messenger 1100 product can now be simply sent to the field pre-programmed and magnetically attached to any piece of equipment. Notifications are then sent to field personnel when equipment “starts” running, when equipment “stops” running and when equipment vibration increases to a “dangerous” level. Historical data is also available on-line to view trends and predict maintenance. The Messenger’s additional features now eliminate most of the traditional investment that was previously required to monitor oilfield equipment. This technological advancement finally simplifies equipment monitoring to a process that involves: pickup-product-from-local-supplier, drive-to-site, stick-onto-equipment The system has been simplified to a point where it is beneficial for oil & gas producers to either purchase the product or rent the product by day, week or month. Product will soon be available locally in most areas through an expanded distribution network that is currently being setup throughout the oil and gas industry.

Features - Compact - “one-piece” solution - Self powered - 5 yr. battery life - Self contained - magnetically mounts to oilfield equipment. - Simple operation - vibration activated notifications on equipment “Start”,“Stop” & “High Vibration” - Low cost - installs in minutes. No minimums & no contracts - Compatible - Notifications sent direct to field personnel and/or existing answering service

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Purchase or rent by the day, week or month COMMUNICATION EQUIPMENT Messenger 1100 • Spill Prevention Monitoring • Tank level inventory reporting • Equipment runtime monitoring • Pressure or temperature sensor monitoring • Turbine ﬂow meter volume reporting

• Rectiﬁer monitoring • Analog and modbus input channels • Four discrete input channels NO/NC

Pro-Talk Alarm Reporting Units • Standard 8 inputs/expandable to hundreds • Monitors remote facilities for high tank alarms, power failures, etc.

• Analog and digital inputs provided • Communicatons Via LANDLINE, CELLULAR OR TWO-WAY RADIO • Operates on low voltage applications.

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Remote Radio Control • Eliminates cable and conduit for carrying4-20 mA currents and digital signals. • Connect instrument outputs to the transmitter and replicate the identical signals at receiver end. • Wireless control for Alarm contacts, Pump on/off, Automatic valves, etc. • Transmit signals from devices such as Flow meters, Tank gauges, Temperature sensors, Pressure sensors, Poisonous gas monitors. etc. Video Surveillance Systems • Capture Digital Snap Shots when motion is sensed. • Each image is Date & time stamped. • Compact and easily concealed.

• Excellent Vision in low light. • Operates on 12 VDC or 120Vac. • Record saved images onboard. • Excellent for residential, commercial and COMPLETE SURVEILANCE SYSTEM industrial applications.

Tank level Inventories • Turbine meter readings • Gas flow measurements • Equipment runtime • Vibration sensing • Alarm notifications • Cathodic rectifier monitoring

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Gauge Boards • Corrosion Resistant (aluminum) • Bolt on or magnetic mounts • Easy installation • Competitively priced • Proximity switch option

CLS 200 POINT LEVEL SENSOR A GREAT WAY TO REPLACE THAT FLOAT SWITCH • LCD Display available • Corrosion resistant design • Explosion proof • Water/Oil interface capable • 20 ft adjustable cable version

• Failsafe with no moving parts Applications: • High tank alarms • Disposal pump leak alarm & shutdown

• Disposal line oil detection • Gas leg ﬂood detection • Treater levels • Dike alarms

B22

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Advance H2S Buddy here isn’t doing too hot, having been knocked down by sour gas. Hopefully someone has a SCBA and is able to get to him quick, or he’s done for. Well, he might be done for already, but at least you can try. Spring is training season, and Advance Drilling in Estevan can be seen here updating their H2S training, led by safety coordinator and trainer Jackie White, top left. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

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Wendell Langford Cell 726-7652 wendell@Áaman.com

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

B23

Brady optimistic things will pick up By Brian Zinchuk Halbrite – The Mullen Group acquisition of Brady Oilﬁeld Services LP in November, 2006, made a big diﬀerence when it came to capitalization of the operation, according to Kelly Brady and Scott Juravle, operational managers. “Since Mullen bought us. We’ve bought 45-50 trailer,” Brady explains. With Mullen ownership, not much has changed, but there is a lot more capital behind them. “It’s allowed us to grow,” say Brady.

The former owner were Kevin Brady, Lana Emde and Randy Martinson. All three are still involved. The company is going on 40 year of operation. Halbrite is the main location of the operation. The Brady yards make up a substantial portion of the south side of the village. They have about 50 company trucks, another 50 leased operator, four pressure trucks, two vac, and ten and gravel units. Most of Brady’ work is oil and salt water hauling, and a good portion of that in the Creelman/

Midale/Weyburn fields. We work for lots of service rig in the EnCana field. That’s our bread and butter,” notes Juravle. That include hauling to and from the rig, and sucking on well heads. The company’s been working for at least 25 years for EnCana. “They’re definitely the ones that brought you to the dance,” say Juravle. ɸ Page B24 Tyler Goebel cleans up a truck at the Brady OilÀeld Service yard in Halbrite. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

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B24

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Staying optimistic ɺ Page B23

A truck is towed into the shop at Brady OilÀeld Services in Halbrite. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

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Lampman fire Brady suffered the loss of its Lampman shop on Jan. 27. A fire destroyed the shop, five company trucks, six trailers, a vac and seven leased operator trucks.”It was a bad day. And it was cold, too,” say Brady. They were still dealing with the aftermath when Pipeline News spoke to them in April. The company didn’t see much of a drop in action until mid-February, when the spring slowdown came a month early. When it came time for seasonal layoff s, only those who asked for a layoff were let go, and that was a small number. “We’re geared up to be busy,” say Brady, noting they have been talking to customer who plan on drilling. Most of their hand are from Weyburn. Brady has a shop in Weyburn, making it much more convenient for their operators based out of there. Last summer they picked up about a dozen hands from Ontario, several from B.C and Quebec. They peaked at 148 staff. In that year they added about 25 leased operators. “We’re hoping to run that,” Juravle say, optimistic for the summer.

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Phone: (306) 634-4797 or 634-7334

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

B25

Who can say CCS makes a difference? By Brian Zinchuk Regina – Just who is doing the hands-on research with carbon dioxide storage? Pipeline News met two of the doctoral students at the University of Regina who are trying to ﬁgure out how to make sense of it all. Jitsopa “Noony” Suebsiri and Anastassia Manuilova are two Ph.D candidates in environmental systems engineering. In their work, they specialize on the life cycle assessment of carbon capture and storage. That includes assessment of all the environmental impacts, starting from coal mining, to power production, CO2 capture, transfer by pipeline to Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) and ultimately, CO2 storage. Suebsiri says they are studying not only the CO2, but the inputs and outputs of each stage in the life cycle. That includes all the raw materials and energy consumption, emissions and waste, adds Manuilova. Does it make sense to pump carbon dioxide into the ground, only to produce more oil to burn and thus create more carbon dioxide? “This is exactly the goal of our study, to answer this question,” Manuilova says. Suebsiri explains. “It is still [more] economical than other energy sources. In the near future, we still need the fossil fuels.” Manuilova says people will still extract oil. Storage oﬀers reductions that are technically and economically viable. So just how much is the net reduction? “With preliminary results, with the same amount of oil produced compared to conventional, the net emissions are 70 per cent less,” Suebsiri says. Asked about other options that don’t produce carbon dioxide emissions, such wind or nuclear, Manuilova says, “Wind is not a 24-hour supply. We will still use coal to produce energy. The focus of the pair’s work is on CO2-enhanced oil recovery and storage, not deep saline storage. A large portion of their work is done using a

software package called GaBi4, life cycle assessment software that works with data from each stage of the life cycle. This includes coal coming in for power production, steel, concrete used for construction phases of the power plant, construction of the CO2 capture unit and pipeline, operations at the oil production site, all the emissions and waste related to the functional unit of 1 megawatt-hour of energy produced. They work with some assumptions, some real

Ph.D candidates Anastassia Manuilova, standing, and Jitsopa “Noony” Suebsiri are working on Ànding hard numbers on the beneÀts of carbon dioxide storage.

data. For instance, SaskPower knows how much coal is going in, and how much power is going out. So who will use this research? Different decision makers, they respond, will use this research to make different environmental improvements. “We account not only for carbon, but all other emissions,” Manuilova says. When you do all these environmental reports, it allows you to convert the numbers into environmental impacts such as global warming, acidification, eco-and human toxicity, etc..

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Suebsiri explains that a capture unit will take up some capacity of the plant, meaning you need to produce more power just to stay at a baseline of output. Their funding comes in part from the Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC), the International Test Centre for CO2 Capture (ITC), the University of Regina, and Nexen,. Suebsiri, 28, is originally from Thailand, and did her masters work at the University of Regina.

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Manuilova, 31, hails from Estonia, and has been in Canada since 2005. She did her masters degree in Sweden on life cycle assessment. “This is big,” she says. “We are really proud to be involved. “We really hope it will have an impact.” “We feel we are part of the world, not part of a project,” Suebsiri notes. “If this project comes up with positive results, people can be more conﬁdent in carbon capture and sequestration.”

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Halbrite’s Ruby Dora Culbertson, left, and her daughter Tiffany take a breather before the lunch rush at DC Country Kitchen in Halbrite. Missing is Nancy Culbertson, who’s also a Àxture in the family business. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

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Hey Girls!

Just wanna have fun? Join the Oil Wives Club of Estevan, a social club for women whose significant others work in the oil patch. We understand relocation and how hard it may be to meet people in a new town. With our long established “Links of Friendship” via over 29 clubs in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan, you will always have a group of friends wherever the patch may take you and your family. Our motto is “Fostering Friendship” and we meet every third Thursday of the month... just to have fun and a meal. Come out and meet with women who share similar interests and take the opportunity to make life-long friendships. Our next meeting will be held May 20th, 2009.

For more information call Cindy Beaulieu at 634-4970 or Connie Spencer at 634-1012 Check out our website at: www.oilwives.com

Halbrite - It was Corner Gas day in Saskatchewan April 13, a perfect day to visit the stereotypical Saskatchewan cafe. DC Country Kitchen & Confectionary in Halbrite may not be the Ruby from Corner Gas, but it’s not that far off, either – family owned, a local institution. “We’ve been running it going on five years,” says Dora Culbertson, owner, with her 19 year old daughter Tiffany beside her. Nancy, 24, is the other daughter who is also a fixture at the cafe. “Kinda like home,” Tiffany says. It used to be King Kountry Kitchen & Confectionary when it was run by Dora’s mom , who operated the location for decades. Is it the only deal in town? “Yup, this would be it.” The restaurant was built 22 years ago, added onto the confectionary. A sign proclaims a rated capacity of 28. There’s licensed dining, with beer behind the glass of the old-fashioned cooler. Then there’s the coffee pot. A regular, Dave, walks in, fills his mug, tosses some coins on the table in front of Tiffany, says a few words, and walks out. Total time? Oh, about 36 seconds, give or take. “That was his second stop of the day, so far,” Tiffany says. “They come and go so fast, it makes your head spin,” Dora adds. “They just grab it and go.” He’s one of the oilmen who make up the vast, vast majority of DC’s clientele. Would it be 70 per cent? “Oh, I would think more – 85 per cent are oilpatch guys, or retired from it,” Dora says. “It’s the truck drivers and Carsons and NewAlta and Dempseys and Bradys,” she notes listing the four primary operations at Halbrite. “We get some local farmers, too.” Asking around town, you’re told you’ll get a filling, down-home meal at DC Country Kitchen, and they would be right. On this day, it’s roast beef, mashed potatoes, stick-to-your-ribs soup and cake. “They like the burgers and clubhouses, the Denvers.” Both Dora and Tiffany notes they just enjoy visiting with the guys. “I miss them terrible when they’re not around,” Dora says.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

B27

Road closed

This road is usually used for lease access along the Souris River valley, southeast of Weyburn. After they opened the dam up, well, let’s just say you might need water wings to get through.

R.B. (Rick) Kenderdine President

Study underway for joint biodiesel plant in Lloydminster Vancouver– Canadian Bioenergy Corporation and Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) are launching a joint feasibility study to construct and operate a 265 million litre per year canola-based biodiesel plant. The plant would be built at ADM’s canola crushing plant in Lloydminster and would use a reported 240,000 tonnes of canola oil from 600,000 tonnes of seed. The announcement follows on the heels of the Alberta government’s recent energy strategy that recommends Alberta adopt a Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS). This new standard of five-percent ethanol in gasoline and two-per-cent renewable content in diesel by 2010 will help Alberta meet its climate change targets by reducing C02 emissions by about one million tonnes annually, and will support Alberta’s renewable fuels sector and the technology development of next generation biofuels. Canadian Bioenergy Corp. also announced plans in October 2008 to build a refinery near Edmonton with the capacity to produce 225 million litres of canola-based biodiesel.

The $90-million plant would be twice the original capacity planned by the pri-

vately held Vancouverbased company, which imports and distributes biodiesel

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B28

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PIPELINE NEWS Saskatchewan’s Petroleum Monthly

C-Section May 2009

Weyburn Oil show a full house

The Weyburn Oil Show will be a full house, with booths selling out in January. The event takes place June 3 and 4 at the Weyburn exhibition grounds. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

By Brian Zinchuk Weyburn – The 13th Biennial Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show in Weyburn has long been sold out for exhibitors, and will likely draw substantial crowds this June. “The show is full, and has been since early January,” says Marlene Nedelcov, manager. “I’m sure there’s over 70 on the waiting list.” There will be 323 booths in total, with 134 outdoors. The event takes place at the Weyburn exhibition grounds, at the northwest corner of the city. “You won’t miss it,” says Ron Jeﬀery, show co-ordinator. The three days starts with setup and a golf tournament for exhibitors on June 2. The main event is Wednesday, June 3, and Thursday, June. 4. The show opens at 10 a.m. on the Wednesday, with an awards luncheon at noon at the curling rink. Premier Brad wall is scheduled to speak during this luncheon. The Saskatchewan oilpatch awards will be handed out at this time, with inductions into the Oilpatch Hall of Fame and awarding of the Saskatchewan Oilman of the year. About eight to ten people are looked at, and usually a half dozen or less are awarded the honour. The show closes on Wednesday at 7 p.m., at which point the awards banquet takes place. The opening ceremonies will be at 8:30 p.m., followed by the presentation of the Southeast Oilman of the Year award. Thursday kicks oﬀ with the Petroleum Services of Canada Association breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Doors open to the show at 8 a.m., and close at 3:30 p.m. The noon luncheon will feature News Talk 980 morning radio host John Gormley. Organizers anticipate 4,000 to 5,000 people will attend the oilshow. Ban-

quets seat between 800 to 1,000 people, and typically sell out. Tickets are available by contacting the show office, at www.oilshow.ca. “We’ve had better crowds during the downturns,” explains Nedelcov. “We’ve seen it so busy, people didn’t have time to go.” It’s seen as an opportunity to show off you wares, Jeffery adds. It will be 25 years since the first talk of an oil show, recounts Jeffery. At a Weyburn economic development meeting, someone had said, “Why don’t we put on an oil show?” “What’s an oil show?” was the response. So they went to the 1984 Lloydminster oil show to find out how its done. Some people were sceptical it could be pulled off, but Jeffery says, “We proved them wrong.” There was some difficulty getting support from the government of the day, but the city of Weyburn stepped up, and the rest is history. “The industry has used it as a showboard for the [oilpatch] community in the eyes of the public,” he says. As for insiders, “They look forward to it.” It may be two years between oil shows, but it takes that long to prepare. “It takes us until November to wrap up the previous show, then you start planning for the next show,” says Nedelcov. “The awards ceremony is a huge event in the industry. We’ll have planeloads of people coming out from Alberta,” Jeffery explains. The board of governors are “all Saskatchewan boys who have done well in the patch,” he adds. “We have a great group of volunteers. Some have been here from the beginning,” Nedelcov says. She was one of them, having been a city councillor at the time the whole thing started. Jeffery has also been around since the beginning. Younger ones are stepping in, she adds.

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Lingenfelter advocates government By Brian Zinchuk The system with the best beneﬁt to the public is one with public and private ownership in resource development, according to NDP leadership candidate and ex-Deputy Premier Dwain Lingenfelter. Lingenfelter raised some hackles from comments he made at a leadership forum, stating: “In the Blakeney government, we set up

SaskOil, we nationalized the potash industry. What I regret in many ways is that we didn't ﬁght harder the privatization of some of those things that we did in the Blakeney era, ie. allowing the potash corporation to be privatized was a big mistake for the province and a big mistake for the party. We fought it but I think there is a question of whether we fought it hard

enough. We allowed the privatization of SaskOil which I think was a big mistake for the province as well. And we should get back to the point of setting up an energy company that does our own drilling and exploration for gas in this province. I'm committed to do that if I'm the Premier." The statement drew lots of ire on talk radio, and the Saskatchewan

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Party responded with MLA Jeremy Harrison saying, “The blatant hypocrisy and opportunism displayed by Dwain Lingenfelter is simply astonishing. For the past eight years Lingenfelter has been employed as a Calgary big oil lobbyist who had no problem collecting his big paycheque and jetting around the world. To then, virtually overnight, become a 1970’s style socialist speaks as much to his character as to his policies,” said Harrison. “Talking about re-nationalization, especially during these challenging economic times, spreads fear and is highly irresponsible. I call on all NDP MLA’s to quit looking in the rear-view mirror and join our government in moving Saskatchewan forward.” Pipeline News spoke to Lingenfelter on April

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9, asking him to clarify what he meant. H e pointed out he was specifically referring to SaskEnergy getting into gas production. “We should get back into the production of gas for our own use,” he told Pipeline News. The province owns all the gas except for small Dwain Lingenfelter amounts of Photo submitted freehold land, end of the spectrum, the he said. It sells the gas American system, with to the private sector, and its total independence, then SaskEnergy buys it doesn’t work well either, back. “Why not produce Lingenfelter added. our own gas?” he asked. He stressed he He said he was a wanted to be very clear, firm believer that those neither a free-for-all or countries that have an a monopoly has his supenergy company, involved in their own port. So how would he production, Petrobras, get the province into the Petronas, StatoilHydro, Saudi Aramco, all state- production side of natuowned entitites, see the ral gas? “I would simply most benefit. Yet the private sector doesn’t shy work through SaskEnaway from doing busi- ergy [and] expand the mandate.” ness there, he added. SaskEnergy, he says, “I’m not a believer of is “really a pipeline coma monopoly in the enerpany.” gy sector, like Mexico.” ɸ Page C3 On the opposite

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to have a role in gas development

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

Talking about re-nationalization, especially during these challenging economic times, spreads fear and is highly irresponsible. I call on all NDP MLAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to quit looking in the rear-view mirror and join our government in moving Saskatchewan forward

â&#x20AC;?

- Dwain Lingenfelter Éş Page C2 SaskEnergy could get involved with jount ventures and farm-ins, he explained, working coal bed methane, shale, and shallow gas. Would he push anyone out? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Heavens no. Quite the opposite.â&#x20AC;? Pipeline News asked how a company would compete in land sales, if a provincial entity could basically write whatever cheque it wants, since the money goes back to the province anyhow. Lingenfelter responded that SaskEnergy would have to compete, noting that it couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do that sort of thing. â&#x20AC;&#x153;At the end of the day, the corporation would have to make money like most of the Crowns, and I would expect a dividend over time.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think you have to subsidize it. Cut out the middleman. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the savings to the public.â&#x20AC;? How much of a savings? He says he doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know, but an example of ďŹ ve per cent lower consistently might be possible. What about oil? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not making that suggestion at this point,â&#x20AC;? he said. Lingenfelter is a vice-president of government relations with Nexen. Nexen is, in part, a successor company of SaskOil, a former Saskatchewan Crown oil company. Since February, he has been on a leave of absence from the company while pursuing the Saskatchewan NDP leadership, which will be decided June 6 in Regina.

SaskOil â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Sask. former Crown Saskatchewan did have a crown corporation acting as a producer in the oilpatch â&#x20AC;&#x201C; SaskOil. From the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan: â&#x20AC;&#x153;SaskOil was established in 1973 by the government of Saskatchewan to facilitate direct government investment in exploration and development in Saskatchewanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY. The creation of SaskOil was partly encouraged by the rapid increases in the price of oil in 1973. The Saskatchewan government also wanted a window on the industry to increase its knowledge of the oil and gas industry production economics. The company grew rapidly in the 1970s through signiďŹ cant government investment in acquisition of existing companies and exploration. By 1976, SaskOil was reported to be producing 6% of Saskatchewan oil production. As the company grew, it acquired production and land positions not just in Saskatchewan but in other parts of western Canada. Besides exploration and development of petroleum, SaskOil also established a research and development branch to develop petroleum technologies; in 1986, the research and development branch of SaskOil was transferred to the SASKATCHEWAN RESEARCH COUNCIL. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The majority of SaskOil was sold to private shareholders in 1986. In 1996, SaskOil was renamed Wascana Energy. The Saskatchewan governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s remaining interest was sold when Canadian Occidental Petroleum acquired Wascana Energy in 1997. At the time of the sale, Wascana Energy was producing about 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent/day from holdings across western Canada. Canadian Occidental Petroleum merged its other Canadian oil and gas production assets with Wascana Energy to create a new Canadian division under the same corporate name, Wascana Energy. The new Wascana Energy had production of about 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent/day in 1997. In 2000, Canadian Occidental Petroleum was renamed Nexen following a buy-out of the interest of the U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum. In 2001, Wascana Energy, controlled by Nexen, was renamed Nexen Canada. - David Hanly

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Enhanced oil recovery and

Carolyn Preston, Ph.D, is the head of the Petroleum Technology Research Centre in Regina. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

By Brian Zinchuk Regina – Saskatchewan has lots of oil underground, but getting it out is another story. Current recovery methods only get a fraction of the oil known to be underground. Finding ways to increase that fraction is a large part of the reason behind the existence of the Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC) in Regina. But while getting oil out of the ground is key to PTRC’s raison d’etre, putting carbon dioxide into the ground is also one its key focuses. A standalone not-for-proﬁt corporation established in 1998, PTRC located in its Innovation Place research park. It’s in the same building as some of the oﬃces of the U of R’s petroleum engineering department and Saskatchewan Research Council’s petro-

leum division. Both are close partners. “Our goal is to ensure the province realizes sustained and hopefully increased oil production with a reduced environmental footprint through the deployment of new technology,” says Carolyn Preston, Ph. D, and executive director. “We get funding from the province, federal government, and industry to fund R & D and new technology in the ﬁeld.” That funding is on a third/third/third basis, she explains. Their strategic goals are usually based around enhanced oil recovery or carbon dioxide geologic storage. STEPS PTRC in April became the founder and manager of STEPS (Sustainable Technologies for Energy

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Production Systems), a business-led network of centres of excellence. Of 40 applicants for such recognition to the Federal government’s NCE secretariat, ten went onto the next step, and only four, including PTRC, were chosen. This means $10.5 million in federal money over four years; money that can be used to leverage other research funds from industry and other research organizations. They’re shooting for a total of $53 million in research funds over four years. “We have a good chunk of it, but we don’t yet have all of it,” notes Preston. New tool The PTRC has a four-year window to make a huge effort with STEPS to see new technology deployed in heavy oil fields, Preston explains. “We have to build some tools to be used in the field,” she says. She won’t get into specifics, but Preston alludes to a new form of sensor that will offer a “deep understanding of what’s happening in the reservoir. It’s not small changes in technology, but a big step, she offers. A combination tool kit, which could involve seismic, wireline, and more. “It will be in real time, or very near realtime – something that could change reservoir management. Of course, reserves will grow.” “It’s proprietary, so we can’t talk about it,” she says, but adds it should be deployable in a couple of years. For solvent-vapour extraction, she asks, “Can you reduce the energy to produce energy in that process?” That could mean a colder process, lower pressure steam, or electricity, she suggests. While Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage, SAGD, gets a lot of notice these days, Preston says it is very reservoir dependent, and the technology has to be modified for every reservoir. JIVE No, it’s not jive-talking. The Joint Implementation of Vapour Extraction ( JIVE) project is a $40 million initiative with a goal to develop, demonstrate and evaluate solvent vapour extraction (SVX) processes for enhanced oil recovery from heavy oil reservoirs in western Canada. ɸ Page C5

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carbon sequestration: PTRC ɺ Page C4 Often little innovations can make a significant difference, Preston notes. Saskatchewan has 25 billion barrels of oil in place, of which 20.4 billion is heavy oil. Of that, only 8 per cent is recoverable with conventional recovery, or, potentially up to 30 to 35 percent with other methods. “The heavy oil in Saskatchewan is really a continuation of the oilsands, but not as biodegraded as bitumen,” she explains. In heavy oil, the challenge is to improve recovery. One aspect they are working on is Solvent Vapour Extraction, or SVX. This is being done on a pilot basis in conjunction with Husky, Nexen and CNRL in the Lloydminster region. At Edam, for instance, they are doing SVX work. One of the key tools the PTRC has at its disposal is a very large, three-dimensional model used to replicate the conditions in a heavy oil reservoir. It’s used to understand physical processes, such as desorption and wormhole propagation. Weyburn-Midale CO2 Perhaps one of the most visible projects PTRC is involved with is the International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas (IEA-GHG) Weyburn-Midale CO2 project. It’s considered the world’s largest natural laboratory, covering an area 200 km wide, 200 km long and 4 km deep, encompassing much of southeast Saskatchewan. It’s been dubbed the largest CO2 sequestration project in the world, and is a test bed to hone skills in geologic storage. There are four technical themes to the project. Site characterization develops a model for the selection of suitable CO2 geological storage sites. Wellbore integrity looks at increasing the knowledge and assessment of risk associated with leakage from abandoned wells caused by material and cement degradation. Monitoring and verification looks at assessing techniques to quantify CO2 volume and distribution. Finally, performance assessment involves a reliable, integrated simulation model to predict long

term storage accurately, and to develop reliable probabilistic methods of predicting leakage from storage sites. “Weyburn is not about oil production for us,” Preston says. When PanCanadian began planning the carbon dioxide flood, she notes it was a unique opportunity to do observations at a commercial level. Eventually the Weyburn field was bought by EnCana, and they agreed to the research side of the project. “You leave a good proportion of CO2 underground,” she says. Apache Canada came onstream with the project in 2005, adding the Midale field to the mix. PTRC provides information to the public and policy makers on CO2 sequestration. It’s information that can be used in cap-and-trade policy decisions, regulatory advice for wellbore completions, and the like. As well logs are public information in Saskatchewan after a certain amount of time, the project can draw on data from about 2,000 wellbores done over 50 years with different regulatory regimes. One of the big questions is, will the carbon dioxide stay where it is put, given there are so many wells into the formation at Weyburn? Will the muds and cements hold it? How far down is the well completed, and does that have an impact? Preston notes those wellbores are tiny pinpricks into the formation, but that proper wellbore monitoring and compositions (for sealing the wells) should maintain the CO2 in place. Aquistore Even if you pumped carbon dioxide into every oil reservoir possible, you won’t have anywhere near the capacity needed to store the amount produced from set point sources in Canada, or the world. “We don’t have oilfields that are big enough,” Preston says. “to store that much CO2.”

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So if you do capture CO2, and can’t pump it into oil reservoirs, what do you do with it? That’s where the Aquistore project comes in. It is researching deep saline aquifers for storage. These are not potable drinking water aquifers, but rather salt with some water in them located deep (as much as 2 km) underground. The PTRC is working with the Regina Co-op Refinery on a project to capture a portion of its carbon dioxide emissions and pump them into nearby deep saline aquifers. If it works, the payoff could have a substantial impact on the ability to sequester carbon dioxide. Other areas PRTC’s efforts are not just in heavy oil or CO2, however. They have initiatives in light and medium crudes, including a specific project looking at Bakken production. The growth of PTRC means three positions were recently posted, expanding in-house staff from 8 to 11.

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New research centre stands up Â&#x201E; By Brian Zinchuk Regina â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Koorosh Asghari, Ph.D, is being given an opportunity few people have â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the chance to set up a new research centre. The petroleum systems engineering professor at the University of Regina is dedicating most of his time these days to getting the International Performance Assessment Centre for Geological Storage of CO2 (IPAC-CO2) oďŹ&#x20AC; the ground. The centre recently received $5 million each from the government of Saskatchewan and Royal Dutch Shell. That time is now spent on developing projects, relationships with researchers, organizations, research agencies, and regulators. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The goal for IPAC is to be the international centre that governments, regulators, industries, when making decisions on CO2 storage projects, they could go to IPAC to verify that CO2 project is done properly.â&#x20AC;? He describes it as â&#x20AC;&#x153;an independent, objective body for evaluating and verifying CO2 storage projects around the world. A global ref The International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas (IEA-GHG) is the international body that looks at what projects for CO2 storage are ongoing. IPACâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role is to verify the reliability of those projects in an objective and veriďŹ able manner. Asghari gives the example of the Alberta government looking at carbon dioxide storage projects. At some point, the government of Alberta needs to verify that the work done is complete, from a third party or by coming to IPAC. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is a referee, a credible referee that draws on the best group of researchers from around the world.â&#x20AC;? É¸ Page C7 Associate Professor Koorosh Asghari, Ph.D, is instrumental in founding a new research centre at the University of Regina, called the International Performance Assessment Centre for Geological Storage of C O2. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

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IPAC-CO2 - an independent, objective body for evaluating and verifying CO2 projects ɺ Page C6 Head office for the organization is at the University of Regina, with researchers from all over Canada and around the world. A second aspect of the organization will be to provide training and expertise in developing countries in areas of CO2 storage. The ultimate role for IPAC will be verifying that projects are done properly. “Our goal is only to verify the comprehensiveness and reliability of the scientific work conducted for storage projects,” he says. In future, if and when some form(s) of carbon trading market come to bear, IPAC-CO2 would provide expertise for governments through verifying the safe long-term storage of CO2. “Governments do not want to give credit to a CO2 project where the CO2 leaks out a year down the road.” It means proper monitoring and the assessment of leaks, Asghari explains. That includes looking at cap rocks, wells drilled, and secondary barriers, including potential application of seismic. “They utilize seismic, and other monitoring techniques, to verify they’ve made the right judgement about the size and location of the injected CO2 in underground formations.” Inclusive He describes IPAC as a very inclusive organization, with participants from Dalhousie, the University of Alberta, Imperial College, Norway, Australia, and other Canadian and international research organizations. “At this stage, we have established the identity, and the goal for IPAC.” IPAC is not a company, he notes. And they will not take money from any company wanting to dictate an agenda. The money from Royal Dutch Shell didn’t have any strings. “Major companies realize CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) will be part of their future energy development,” Asghari says, adding it’s beneficial to industry to have a centre like IPAC. “Any major international organization takes some time,” he says, ”to get the concept across – that it’s relevant and there’s a need”. Now he has seed funding, just got offices and a physical centre in place on the campus of the University of Regina. Major roles are assigned. It’s sort of a membership drive going on now. Currently there are five people working

in offices. IPAC is part of the Office of Energy and Environment at the University of Regina, and derives a lot of administrative support from the university. IPAC is yet another spawn of Malcolm Wilson, Ph.D. who heads the Office of Energy and Environment. Wilson was also instrumental in the formation of the Petroleum Technology Research Centre and the International Test Centre at the U of R. IPAC-CO2 just got rolling in late 2008. Since then, Wilson has been fundraising, seeking federal, Alberta, American and corporate funding. Storage options There are four geological storage options Asghari lists for carbon dioxide. The first is in oilfields, such as the Weyburn-Midale project. These have the potential for immediate economic payback via enhanced oil recovery. The second is saline aquifers. These formations potentially have room for huge volumes of CO2. However, there are no immediate economic benefits unless there is some sort of carbon dioxide monetization scheme in place. Transportation is an expensive part of the equation. The third option is putting CO2 in depleted gas reservoirs, using the pore space of those reservoirs as a storage site. This option also could use existing infrastructure. Pipelines that once collected gas from reservoirs might now be used to distribute carbon dioxide. The fourth option is to use carbon dioxide in enhanced coal bed methane recovery. There is a possibility of injecting the CO2, causing it to release more methane. There are some small field tests, but this has not been developed as much as the work done in oilfields. Of all the projects, oilfield and deep saline storage are the best options we have right now, he explains. Projects Do they have any project yet? “We are talking to get involved in a couple projects,” he says, but they have not signed on to any yet. Those projects are in Saskatchewan, Montana and Alberta. “IPAC does address a fairly huge need within this whole CCS industry – who is going to verify CCS projects?”

13th Biennial Saskatchewan

Oil &Gas Show Exhibition Grounds, Weyburn, SK

June 3 & 4, 2009

634-3009

Estevan

➟Chairman: Ron Carson, Carson Energy Service Ltd. ➟Vice Chairman: Dennis Krainyk, Apache Canada Inc. ➟Honourary Chairman: Hon. Bill Boyd, Minister of Industry and Resources

Home of the Saskatchewan Oil Patch Awards

■ ■

■

Tuesday, June 2, 2009 – Golfing for exhibitors and guests. Set up and steak or lobster dinner. Wednesday, June 3, 2009 – Show hours 10:00 am-7:00 pm — Awards luncheon, Guest Speaker Premier Brad Wall Sponsored by SaskPower — Induction into Hall of Fame by Board of Governors of deserving Saskatchewan Oilmen or Women. — 7:00 pm Awards Banquet — 8:30 pm Opening Ceremonies, followed by the SE Sask. Oilman of the Year Thursday, June 4, 2009 – Show hours 8:00 am-3:30 pm — PSAC breakfast 7:30-9:30 am — Noon luncheon with keynote speaker John Gormley Sponsored by Crescent Point Energy Trust

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Estevan OTS holds 50th Bonspiel

Big or Small we Do All

Story and photos by Brian Zinchuk Estevan – Hardly a rock was knocked out during the championship game of the Estevan 50 th Annual. Dusty Schneider of Grande Prairie beat out Jeff Mosley of Southern Corrosion Control 7-3 in the A-final. The event took place March 26-29, timed for spring breakup. It was Schneider’s second win of the bonspiel in recent years. Schneider was originally from Estevan, putting a lot of miles on to make it to the bonspiel. Weatherford Completions brings it home at Sixty four teams took part in the event. the Estevan OTS 50th Annual Bonspiel. The organizers had planned on a big one, in Tony Naka threw honour of the 50 th year of the bonspiel. The last few years they had around 48 teams, accordthe Àrst rock ing to Greg Kallis, one of the OTS organizers, as well as a player with the second place at the Estevan Mosley rink. It was about as big as they could go without having to stretch the event OTS 50th Annual into another day. Bonspiel. “We had teams from Wainwright, Calgary, Brooks,” Kallis notes. The banquet sold out at 288 plates, with a focus on fellowship and as few speeches as possible. “We want to let it flow right through, a couple Manufacturing, Sales & Repair jokes and door prizes,” Kallis says. “To me, this is a great success, good turnout.” The bonspiel donated $260 for junior curling in Estevan. “We’re still working on our commitment of $25,000 to the new rink over five years,” Welding Kallis said, speaking of the planned new arena for Estevan. “This is year two. Once all the numbers Fabricating get in, at the end of September, we’ll see what we can give. Machining The next major event for the Estevan OTS is the annual golf tournament, June 5-7. Hydraulics ɸ Page C10

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Adrian Fraser, left, and Blaine DeBruine, right, sweep hard for skip Ryan Benjamin’s rock. The rink is Roughneck Supervision.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

OTS Bonspiel 50 years and counting ɺ Page C8 &C9 Recap The A-Final went 7-3 to the rink of Dusty Schneider, Darrel Duce, Donald Willock and Devon Fornwald. Second place went to Southern Corrosion, made up of Skip Jeﬀ Mosley, Greg Kallis, Kim Harbourne and Gerry Naka. In the B-Event, Midwest Surveys Charles Olson, Davide Quirk, Darcy Laing and Michael Clausen beat out Weatherford Completions Roy Armstrong, Duane Erhmantraut, Grant Mathewson and Kip Dayman by a score of 6-5. The C-Event went 7-1 to Sentry International’s

Roy Dunville, Cory March, Kevin Berze and Lee Spencer. Second went to Guardian’s Dale Gyorﬁ, Craig Reiger, Pat Messer, Les Geisel. D1-Event went 7-0 to the Baker Hughes rink of Dustin Hockey, Landon Kosier, Call LaCoste, Larry Paterson and spare Darren Delorme. They defeated Supreme’s Lawrence Hanson, Doug Seymore, Evan Woodrow and Harvey Phillips. In D-2, Adam Himmelspach’s rink of Kirk Hemmelspach, Mike Makilki and Darcy Himmelspach won 7-2 against Midﬁeld Supply’s Carl Lang, Brian Fitspatrick, Derick Juenison and Mel Fitzpatrick.

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Skip Dusty Schneider of Grande Prairie throws one of the Ànal rocks in the championship game at the Estevan OTS 50th Annual Bonspiel. Schneider’s rink won in a game that saw nearly every rock stay in play in each end.

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that there was a need for containment and this was a very active area in heavy oil,” explained Konechny. “We are confident the demand is not going to go away. When it comes down to it, there are more guidelines and regulations from plant work to field work. “You can’t start flowing oil without doing secondary containment, whether it’s us or the competition. We’re the first cog in the rest of the cogs. Oil companies can’t do anything until the liner and the container are installed.” After CESL has put up its galvanized steel wall and sealed the liner to the wall, they cover the base with sand in preparation for the oil company to install their tanks on a timber pad and connect the flow lines. Then the oil can be pumped. “In Saskatchewan, some companies still might go with a dirt berm but for the past 12 years in Alberta it’s been a galvanized or a steel product,” said Konechny. “Galvanized steel doesn’t rust.” CESL assembles and installs a modular galvanized steel containment system from Westeel that is bolted together in round, oblong, square or rectangular configu-

rations to encircle any number of batteries in the ﬁeld. Containment walls range from 44 inches in height for single batteries to 22 inches for enclosing multiple batteries. “We have a computerized program,” said Konechny. “When a customer calls they will give us a scenario of how many tanks they have and how much volume they carry. From that footprint, we key into the Westeel program. That will determine what size is the best value for that type of containment. That’s our starting point.” Konechny says the Westeel system, is virtually maintenance-free and requires less space than concrete, earthen or plastic containment systems. “What we’ve found with the small plastic container is that when its gets to -30 C they are fragile if any equipment or a pickup truck contacts them. There’s the cracking factor with them. “The advantage of galvanized steel is longevity and it’s easy to transport,” added Konechny. “For most jobs, we can carry all of the supplies with one truck and a trailer.” The system includes a geomembrane liner made by Layﬁeld Group

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plastics that will stop hydrocarbons or a chemical or a liquid fertilizer from contaminating the ground. “Basically, what we are doing is building an above ground swimming pool,” explained Konechny. “When the tank leaks, everything stays within the containment.” When a leak does occur, the Energy Ministry in Alberta or the Saskatchewan Energy and Resources ministry would do a site inspection and bring in vac trucks to suck out the material and reclaim the sand and the base. “They check to see if there were any leaks while they were sucking out the material,” said Konechny. “If there are no issues with any damage to the liner, they can give the clear to start operating again.” In Saskatchewan, CESL has installed containments for liquid fertilizers in Regina. CESL’s distributor in Estevan has also installed containments on some of the purging valves on TransCanada Pipeline Ltd.’s pipeline from Moose Jaw to Winnipeg. “They use water in the summer time which they can dump on the ground,” said Konechny. “Once it gets into freezing temperatures, they have to use a glycol to do their purging, so they need a containment to bleed them oﬀ.” CESL has seen most of its grow in recent years around its base in Cold Lake and moved its three-person liner fabrication operation from Lloydminster to Cold Lake in March. ɸ Page C12

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Helping the environment

This is six-tank containment with galvanized steel walls. Photo submitted

ɺ Page C11 “We are adding on to our existing shop in Cold Lake and we will have a bigger manufacturing shop and do everything out of Cold Lake,” said Konechny. “The liner comes in rolls like a carpet is plastic welded together and made into packages we can ship out.” CESL is running ads on Newcap Television to extend the reach of its marketing in western Canada and its fast growing outlet in Grande Prairie. “We have clients in Saskatchewan and Manitoba who tell us they’ve seen our ad on TV. We also thought it was a unique way to support the community because Newcap is a local business.” Potential CESL clients might also like to know CESL install the systems. “We install the unit ourselves or send them to distributors who install them,” said Konechny. “In Cold Lake. we do about 70 per cent of the installation and 30 per cent shipping out. In the Grande Prairie area it’s about 40 per cent installation and 60 per cent shipping out. “If we get a call today, nine out of 10 times, we can be on site the next day. That’s how we’ve grown the business. It’s usually getting crews together that cause delays, not the materials.”

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Dealing with the tail end of drilling Halbrite – The oilpatch generates its share of waste, and some of it cannot go straight to the landﬁll. It takes a specialized operation, like the NewAlta facility in Halbrite, to bring that waste up to the standard where it can be disposed of. The Halbrite location is strictly an oilﬁeld facility, catering to the upstream oil and gas industry. The main business is the recovery of crude oil. “We separate the contaminant products they may have,” says Russel McCallum. “The company as a whole is in the products recycling business.” “We run centrifuge equipment for separation,” notes Dale Schmidt, district manager “Typically we have a lot of drilling

waste – drill muds, frac sands, completion gells, things like that.” They also take spill cleanups. Product coming in is offloaded into the reclamation plant for temporary storage. Then it goes through the threephase centrifuge, separating water, oil and solids. The solids, mostly fine sand and mud, get augured onto the pad. The water gets deep-well injected. The solids go to a third party – an approved landfill. The pile gets moved every four to six weeks, totalling about 13,000 cubic meters or 17,000 to 20,000 tonnes a year. Total throughput is about 60,000 cubic metres a year annually. “We treat it to the landfill criteria specs,” says Schmidt.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Putting all the CO2 talk into action Story and photos by Brian Zinchuk Halbrite – There’s an awful lot of talk these days about the carbon dioxide sequestration project at Weyburn and Midale. But what might be missed in the equation are the people on the ground that have spent the better part of a decade putting it all in place.

Carson Welding and Maintenance does a substantial portion of the actual field work on the EnCana Weyburn field and the Apache Canada Midale field. So it was fitting then to set up shop right between them, at Halbrite, on Highway 39. Lionel Pouliot is the Halbrite manager for Carsons. “We have an excellent working relation-

ship with both,” he says of EnCana and Apache. The Halbrite location also does work for Petrobank, NAL, Cresent Point, Devon Canda, Spectra Energy, Enerplus, and smaller operators. Most of their work, however, is within 20 miles, in the local ﬁelds. During spring breakup, they’re down to about 55 staﬀ; it was substantially higher at the

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Carson workers do the sheet-metal completion of the new shop expansion at Carson Welding and Maintenance’s Halbrite shop.

peak of things last year. “We were up to about 85 people this last fall,” he explains. That staﬀ is drawn from all over – Estevan, Weyburn, Halbrite, Midale. Most of their work is maintenance and new construction, and most

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of that is in the carbondioxide flood fields that are getting all the attention. It meant having two segregated welding areas – one with carbon steel, the other with stainless steel. “We’ve had to segregate two of our shops. You don’t want carbon contaminating your stainless piping,” Pouliot says. Due to the corrosive nature of carbon dioxide, stainless steel is used in the carbon dioxide fields. It means a special ticket for welders working on stainless. They also to skids work, including header/ separator skids. One was ready for delivery for Apache Canada when

Pipeline News visited in mid-April. The piping inside is all stainless, except for the valves and Carson-built separator. The valves are cast, and both the separator and valves have stainless steel internals. The header/ separator skid will handle up to 16 wells coming in, with a capacity for 24, if they wanted to expand, Pouliot explains. In the back of the yard are several oﬃce trailers, current home to the ﬁrm’s major facilities group. They had done expansions at the EnCana plant, for NAL at Alida, and were working on a project for Apache. The group includes superintendances, formen, and facilities group management. ɸ Page C15

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

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The internal workings of a new header/separator building built by Carson Welding and Maintenance in Halbrite gleams with stainless steel piping. Stainless is needed to deal with the corrosive nature of carbon dioxide.

Using the CO2 ɺ Page C14 On the south side of the lot, Carson employees are ﬁnishing up the latest addition to the site, installing sheet metal on the interior of a shop expansion that went up over the winter. “Eleven, 12 years ago, when we started here, we had 15 employees,” Pouliot recalls. Since then, they’ve had four expansions. “A huge part of that is due to the CO2. It ﬂows into every area.” “The Bakken is just 10 minutes away from here,” he adds. “The CO2 was very good for this area. We built this facility 11, 12 years ago with the CO2 coming in. We knew there was going to be lots of work going on with the CO2. “When you do a CO2 project, it’s not only the initial work, it’s years down the road. CO2 is injected, more oil recovered, more volumes, it just snowballs. More gas, more everything.”

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

TS & M PROPERTY FOR SALE Estevan expanding, opening Redvers location Commercial & Industrial

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Excellent industrial property with great highway exposure on main thoroughfare at main intersection. 420’ frontage with some land for development on corner and income from 4 commercial units. Three units in one newer building constructed in 1986 and added onto in 1997.

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$300,000

$1,250,000

MLS#

By Brian Zinchuk

722 Fifth Street Excellent shop - warehouse - ofﬁce property in the #20 Highway 39 East center of the city. 1 block off highway access. Attractive SHOP ONLY. Large space with front ofﬁces (recently exterior and large overhead doors. Chain link fence renovated) 3 overhead doors, large yard. Property just compound. All metal exterior. off the highway for accessibility. Welder, large air comp $297,500 & work benches included. City water, own septic sys- MLS# 311778 tem. Steel frame building. Built in 1967. 3 Phase power. New furnace in 2000.

$720,000

MLS# 329887

Pick Land 18.94 acres suitbale for a residential development or commercial development. MLS# 320995

$675,000

Estevan – TS&M, National Oilwell Varco’s operation in southeast Saskatchewan is in the process of opening a new shop in Redvers, and expanding its Estevan operation this year. “This is a brand new store for us,” says Karl McKenzie, manager of procurement and integration. “We’ve got two guys out there.” In early April he noted the offices were just finished at the Redvers location. TS&M will be leasing out the front portion of what McKenzie describes as a “monster building.” They will have the option to expand within the building, if needed. When Pipeline News spoke to TS&M they were just firing up the operation. “Our guys have been on the road since the beginning of the year.”

Tonita Land 60 acres of hay land. Potential for water well. Good for residential acreage. MLS# 329862

$135,000

Industrial Parks 1 Mile East of Estevan

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Precision Drilling shakes hands with Alberta’s investment arm Calgary – Precision Drilling Corporation and its income trust acquired a measure of financial certainty in mid-March thanks to a $280-million debt and equity financing package from the Alberta Investment Management Corp. (AIMCo). AIMCo, the province’s investment arm, has taken a 15 per cent interest in Precision by buying $105-million in trust units at $3 each. It also lent the company $175-million in unsecured notes, at 10 per cent interest. The transaction is expected to reduce Precision’s annual interest payments by $70-million. “We are extremely pleased with our new relationship with AIMCo and the Alberta institutions which it represents,” said Kevin Neveu, president and chief executive officer of Precision in a news release. “This integrated financing plan provides us with a reasonable cost of capital and removes many of the uncertainties associated with the Trust’s existing credit situation. Precision had been paying 17 per cent interest on a $296-million bridge loan it incurred in its acquisition of Grey Wolf last December. AIMCo also won warrants to buy a further 15 million Precision units at $3.22 per unit over the next five years, and Precision announced plans for a rights offering to allow current unit holders to buy a further $103-million in units at $3 per unit. This marks the first time AIMCo, which manages $70-billion in provincial pension and endowment funds, has taken such a position in an Alberta company. AIMCo was the only entity to make Precision a large financing offer, and immediately faced charges that it was staging a corporate rescue of a troubled Alberta company. AIMCo was made a separate Crown corporation on Jan. 1, 2008. It had, however, made at least one major private equity investment – in Puget Energy – before that time. AIMCo was also part of a consortium that provided funding to KMC Mining Corp. last March.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

PTRC: A closer look at JIVE, Mervin and Aquistore By Brian Zinchuk Regina – Late in the summer of 2008, Pipeline News caught wind of some enhanced oil recovery going on in the Edam area. A call was quickly met with the

response, “Sorry, I can’t talk about that.” It turns out the Lloydminster region, including the Edam district, is seeing quite a bit of experimentation in enhanced oil recovery, with the assistance of

the Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC) in Regina. Steve Whittaker is the senior project manager of PTRC and of the IEA-GHG Weyburn-Midale project. Kyle Worth is Joint

Member of CAODC, locally owned with four free standing double rigs and two free standing single rigs

Ron Newett - 861-1062 • Al Vilcu - 861-5253 Field Supervisor - Darren Wanner • 861-9990 The Regina Co-op ReÀnery is looking at capturing about a third of its carbon dioxide emissions, and pumping them underground into deep saline aquifers, with the assistance of the Petroleum Research Technology Centre. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

Southern Range Well Servicing Ltd.

Box 895, Weyburn, SK, S4H 2L1 southernrange@sasktel.net Bus: (306) 842-3401 Fax: (306) 842-3402

Implementation of Vapour Extraction ( JIVE) manager. PTRC spends a lot of its energy on enhanced oil recovery and carbon dioxide storage. JIVE JIVE includes participation from Nexen, Husky and CNRL. It’s

meant to demonstrate solvent vapour extraction, or SVX. Propane/methane or butane/methane is injected into the reservoir for the purposes of enhanced oil recovery. Worth notes the alternative is Steam Assisted Gravity, or SAGD.

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SVX is a cold process, a chemical process similar to carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery. It reduces the viscosity of the oil. JIVE involves three fields – Husky at Edam, CNRL at Primrose, and Nexen at Luseland. They are demonstrating different types of solvents to determine the best enhanced oil recovery combinations and operating strategies. All three are cyclic. Referred to as a “huff and puff,” it’s similar in concept to a CSS, Cyclic Steam Stimulation, a thermal process also used in the Lloydminster region. Solvent is injected into the formation. It will soak, and then the well will produce. The cycle is then repeated. The solvent is separated on site, coming out of the oil. Husky is still in operation, in their third cycle, according to Worth. The other two are trying to improve recovery while trying to minimize solvent loss. Mervin CO2 It turns out there was something to that tip about CO2 in the Edam area. The Mervin Heavy Oil Project is north of Edam, where Husky and PTRC are collaborating on a demo carbon dioxide project in a heavy oil field. It’s an immiscible flood, unlike the miscible floods in Weyburn and Midale. Heavy oil won’t mix with carbon dioxide. This is a gas drive, and it had never been done in the field before. Also a “huff and puff,” they are in an injection period. ɸ Page C19

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

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Oil recovery and CO2 storage are the name of the game ɺ Page C18

and what are the longterm impacts. This project is not The Aquistore part of JIVE. project is in the planAquistore ning stages, and inOne of their new volves the Consumers’ projects at PTRC is Co-op Refineries Ltd. called Aquistore – a car- in Regina. The refinery bon dioxide sequestra- is in charge of capturtion concept in which ing the CO2, through a CO2 is pumped under- retrofit, and capturing ground into deep saline the stream of carbon formations. There’s 100 dioxide. The number times greater carbon they are shooting for is dioxide storage poten- about 500 tonnes a day, tial in such formations, or less. compared to oil and gas Put in perspective, reservoirs. that’s about one third Also, not every oil of their output. But it’s and gas reservoir will also about half of the respond to carbon di- carbon to be captured oxide enhanced oil re- per day in the planned covery. Deep saline is Boundary Dam Power seen as an alternative Plant carbon capture to disposal and storage project, and that’s on a where there are no oil power plant. Five hunand gas reservoirs, ex- dred tonnes a day is plains Whittaker. about one fourteenth When talking of the amount of carbrine, these formations bon dioxide going into are substantially salty. the ground each day in The ocean has around the Weyburn-Midale 35,000 parts per mil- project (7000 tonnes a lion (ppm), or 3.5 per day). cent. These aquifers The refinery may are more like 100,000 look at more capture ppm (10 per cent) to down the road, Whit300,000 ppm (30 per taker says. “It’s an imcent). It’s extremely sa- pact in that somebody’s line, and in some places doing the capture. As the most saline water far as mitigating CO2 ever measured. in to the atmosphere, Aquistore is in its it’s a step. It’s one of early stages, as a dem- the first steps”. onstration project. “Our role is to investigate how long you can store CO2,” Whittaker says. Well, then, how long? “We know we can store it securely for 1,000 plus years,” he replies. “If you can store it that long, you can store it indefinitely. You just have to put it in the right spot.” Carbon dioxide occurs naturally in the subsurface, he explains. “But we have to know, when we shove a bunch [of CO2] down there, underground, what happens?” Worth notes one of considerations is manmade intrusions into the formation. They want to see how carbon dioxide interacts with rock, brine,

Who pays for this stuff? Is it possible to send this carbon dioxide to Weyburn to be used in EOR?

It’s possible, is the reply, but Aquistore is focused on a storage project. And it comes down to economics, including transportation.

“Is anyone going to pay for CO2? That’s what it comes down to.” The Aquistore project is looking at staying close to home – in-

jecting CO2 just a few miles from Regina. There will be some kind of a return, they note, be it a carbon credit or tax.

The Regina Co-op ReÀnery attempting to capture carbon dioxide emissions.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Diversifying into buildings

Vernon “Butch” McLean prepared several years ago to diversify his Bienfait Àbreglass business. Now he’s pulled the moulds out of storage and will be manufacturing modular buildings.

Story and photos by Brian Zinchuk Bienfait – With a slowdown in the patch,

Estevan Plastics of Bienfait is diversifying its product line, adding uninsulated ﬁbreglass modular buildings.

Junior Oil and Gas Company Seeks Merger Partner Small private junior with active operations in SE Saskatchewan and SW Manitoba with full E+P team seeks merger partners.

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It’s something owner Vernon “Butch” McLean has had up his sleeve for many years, having purchased the moulds several years ago. He waited until the time was right to launch the new line, and now, the time is right. He aims to move into the consumer market, rather than strictly the oilpatch. “When the tank business went slow, I thought we’d start building buildings.” The line is similar in many ways to army modular tents. The basic structure is half a clamshell – 8 ft. tall, 4-ft.

wide, and 4-ft. deep. Put two together like a clamshell, and you have the basic structure. Add endcaps, a door unit, or a garage door, and you have the basic structure. Five panels in length gives you a 20-ft. structure. You can add a spacer between the half-shells to increase the width to 14-ft. Along the ground you use treated 4x6s for a footing. Those footings can be anchored with metal posts or pilings, similar to a backyard deck. The panels are light, around 35 lbs. each, “It can be assembled in an afternoon by two people,” McLean says. “All you need are a couple wrenches and a caulking gun”.

Are there oilfield applications? “Oh yes,” he says, noting it can be used as a motor house or header building. “We don’t need an insulated building for a header building or motorhouse. The oil or motor is warm.” He’s aiming at the local market, noting it has uses for anyone who could use a secured storage building. Greenhouses are another possible application. Estevan Plastics has been building fibreglass oil tanks for six years, and performs tank repairs in the field. However, their bread and butter is the belt guard for pumpjacks. When you want to change the belts, you just take off the door.

Pumpjacks are equipped with a sensor. If the belt spins once, the pumpjack shuts down, McLeans explains. “If they get wet in the rain the pumpjack shuts down.” “If the operator’s gone at 4:00, and it slips at 4:30, it’s down the whole day unless they have an alarm on it.” Metal models will vibrate themselves to pieces, he notes. Mclean has been working with fibreglass for decades. “I pioneered the fibreglass bathtube industry in 1969. I was the first one in Canda making them,” he recalls. Back then, they were manufactured for the mobile home plant in Estevan.

Dave Sernick demoulds a pumpjack belt guard at Estevan Plastics.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Is there was a well pad in Estevan? Um, no. Estevan – So what’s up with all the derricks in the air? Independent Well Servicing in Estevan had four of its six rigs set up in its east Estevan yard in mid-April. Spring breakup means maintenance time in the oilpatch, and that’s exactly what they were doing. “We are doing some work on each of the rigs,” explains Tim Huber, general manager and part-owner. One had radiator work, another needed some break work done, and the other two needed work on their drawworks. Having the derrick up and out of the way is necessary to get at many of these components. The company has six rigs right now, with a seventh near commissioning. By mid-April, it was being painted in Edmonton. It’s expected to come home in early May. Look for more details in next month’s Pipeline News.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Energy experts prospected for information at Regina forum Regina–There was lots of drilling and exploration of information going on during the oil and gas forum in Regina April 23-24. That’s not surprising given the forum attracted hundreds of private and public sector specialists and speakers to the Regina Delta to prospect for exploration and development opportunities and news. The two-day event was held by Insight, a national conference organizer that assembled a select roster of industry leaders and experts to profile their views, experience and strategies on what it takes to succeed in Saskatchewan’s growing energy sector. Saskatchewan is the second largest oil producing province in Canada and ranks third amongst the provinces in its production of natural gas. The province has estimated its remaining crude oil recoverable reserves to be in excess of one billion barrels, its heavy oil in place at 25 billion barrels, and its natural gas recoverable reserves in excess of 2.7 trillion cubic feet. Some of the issues and perspectives influencing Saskatchewan’s energy development were explored during the forum, including changes to spill notification regulations, cross-border transmission and access to the U.S. market In addition, some of the speakers addressed opportunities such as partnering successfully with First Na-

tions, enhanced oil recovery, heavy oil extraction technology, CO2 sequestration, emergency communications and understanding recent trends and developments in the energy sector. There were also talks about managing protection of intellectual property rights, and understanding changes to the environmental regime in Saskatchewan. One of the presentations included the topic “Saskatchewan Oil- New Opportunities in the 21st Century” by Quinton Hardage, the drilling manager of North Rim Exploration Ltd. Hardage highlighted the hotspots of energy production in the province including light conventional oil, heavy oil, bitumen, oil shale and C02 injection plays. Another presentation titled “Petroleum Contaminated Sites” by Leslie MacPherson and Tyerman LLP dealt with guidelines, legislation and potential liabilities for operators. “Working with Aboriginal Communities and Developing Employment Opportunities in the Oil and Gas Sector” was the topic presented by Peter Snow, president of Snow and Associates Inc. Snow focused on creating short and long-term employment opportunities and strategic planning to identify speciﬁc needs. Insight is also holding a carbon management forum in Calgary June 3.

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Energy Training Institute

ATV Training – 1 day Locations: Assiniboia, Estevan, Weyburn, and Whitewood Weyburn - May 22, 23 Confined Space – 1 day Locations & Dates: Carlyle - May 28, June 23; Carnduff - April 20; Estevan - May 13, June 10, July 15, August 26; Moosomin - May 8; Weyburn - June 11, July 9, August 19; Whitewood - June 9 Construction Safety Training System (CSTS) Computer-based training. Locations: Assiniboia, Estevan, Weyburn, and Whitewood Detection and Control of Flammable Substances – 1 day Location & Dates: Weyburn - May 7

H2S Alive – 1 day Locations & Dates: Assiniboia - May 9, June 20; Carlyle - May 12, 27, June 9; Estevan - May 7, 21, June 3, 18, July 9, 22, August 6, 19; Weyburn - May 14, 22, June 13, 23, July 16, 31, August 20 Whitewood - June 8 O H & S – Ready for Work – 1⁄2 day Locations & Dates: Assiniboia - May 26; Coronach - May 26; Weyburn - May 7, July 18 Petroleum Safety Training (PST) Also known as IRP16. Computer-based training. Location: Assiniboia, Estevan, Weyburn & Whitewood

Powered Mobile Equipment Training

Fall Arrest –1/2 day Locations: Assiniboia, Estevan, Weyburn and Whitewood First Aid (Standard)/ CPR and AED Locations & Dates: Assiniboia - June 13 - 14, July 11 - 12, August 22 - 23; Carlyle - May 25 - 26, June 13 - 14; Carnduff - May 23 - 24; Coronach - May 23 - 24; Indian Head - May 25 - 26, July 6 - 7 - 8 am – 5 pm; Estevan - May 9 - 10, 19 - 20, June 1 - 2, 6 - 7, 16 - 17, July 7 - 8, 20 - 21, August 4 - 5, 17 - 18; Weyburn - May 11 - 12, 26 27, June 6 - 7, 16 - 17, July 11 - 12, 27 - 28, August 15 - 16; 25 - 26; Whitewood - June 6 - 7, August 3 – 4, 8 am – 5 pm First Aid/CPR Refresher and AED (must have a current certificate) Locations & Dates: Estevan - May 13, June 24, August 11; Weyburn - July 22 Ground Disturbance Level II – 1 day Locations & Dates: Indian Head - May 27, July 8; Estevan - May 14, July 7; Weyburn - June 11, August 13; Whitewood - August 5

Do you require PME (powered mobile equipment) training to meet the new OH&S Regulations? If so, give your local campus a call for more information or to make arrangements for training. Forklift Assessment – 1 day Location: Assiniboia May 30; June 27 Forklift Operator – 1 day Location & Dates: Weyburn May 20; Aug 12 PME - Grader Location & Date: Weyburn - May 29 Safety Management & Regulatory Awareness Refresher – 1 day Location & Dates: Weyburn - May 9 TDG or WHMIS On-line Locations: Assiniboia, Estevan, Weyburn & Whitewood Transportation of Dangerous Goods (TDG) –1⁄2 day Locations & Dates: Estevan - May 12, June 24, July 14, August 12; Weyburn - May 8, 21, June 2, August 18; Whitewood June 10

Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) – 1⁄2 day Locations & Dates: Coronach - May 27; Estevan (1:00 pm) - May 12, June 24, July 14, August 12; Weyburn - May 7, 21, June 2, July 18, August 18; Whitewood - June 10

Truck Driver Training • 1A Truck Driving Programs • Programs start weekly • No classroom, all in-truck training (Exception: Weyburn has 2 days of classroom with the 10 day program) • Programs designed to suit the students’ needs • Hourly, 6, 7, or 10-day programs

Heavy Equipment Operator Program - 200 hours The Heavy Equipment Operator Program provides knowledge and skill development in operating heavy equipment. You must successfully complete the theory courses and the two specialty courses. Each specialty course focuses on one of the following pieces of equipment. • Backhoe • Crawler tractor • Excavator • Motor grader Students will receive two safety certificates: St. John’s First Aid/CPR Level “A” and Ground Disturbance Level II. Graduates may find employment operating heavy equipment in the construction industry, pipeline and oil patches, forestry industry, or rural and urban municipalities. Admission requirements: Valid Class 5 driver’s license Will you, or are you presently collecting EI benefits? This program may be a funded program Location: Indian Head Dates: May 25 - June 26, July 6 - 31 Tuition: $7980 + materials: $20 *Material prices are approximate.

For more info or to register contact Southeast Regional College 629 King Street, Weyburn, SK S4H 2Z9

1-866-999-7372 Visit our website: www.southeastcollege.org

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

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Saskatchewan’s man on the ground – a Nobel laureate By Brian Zinchuk

Gas Programme Weyburn-Midale Monitoring and Storage Project and the initial design work for the Regina – Eldon Lautermilch and Petroleum Technology Research Ralph Goodale, provincial and federal Centre (he also represents the Unicabinet ministers for Saskatchewan at versity on the Board of Directors of the time, were having a smoke in Kirthe PTRC). He helped to found the ghizstan as the story goes. Over this ITC and IPAC-CO2 and currently smoke, they decided on the need to acts as the Director of IPAC-CO2. push for petroleum research in SasIn 2007, Dr. Wilson was recognized katchewan. as a co-recipient of the 2007 No“This landed squarely on my desk,” bel Prize for Peace for his work on says Malcolm Wilson, director of the the International Panel on Climate Oﬃce of Energy and Environment. Change (IPCC) with former US He recalls being told, “Malcolm, Vice President Al Gore and the scicreate a petroleum research facility.” entists of the IPCC.” Thus begat the Petroleum TechnolWilson spends a lot of his time ogy Research Centre at the University in airports these days, circling the of Regina. world, spreading the gospel about “From nothing in 1998, by 2002 carbon dioxide capture and storwe had the largest petroleum engineerage. He’s working on developing ing program in Canada,” he recalls. the Saskatchewan-Montana project, Wilson never did head the PTRC, was involved in the initial design work Malcolm Wilson, director of the OfÀce of Energy and Environment at the Uni- which he hopes will see carbon diof the PTRC and is on the board. Now versity of Regina, is Saskatchewan’s front man on carbon dioxide capture and oxide captured in Saskatchewan sent Photo by Brian Zinchuk to Montana for geological storage. he heads the Oﬃce of Energy and storage. “The level of interest in this has Environment, which supports or has gone up enormously in the last 18 tre for Geological Storage of CO (IPAC-CO ). spawned two more research centres, the 2 2 According to the OEE website, “Dr. Wilson was months as companies work on reducing their emisInternational Test Centre for CO2 Capture (ITC), and the International Performance Assessment Cen- involved in the initiation of the IEA Greenhouse sions of CO2,” he says of his work.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Testing solvent in action Story and photos by Brian Zinchuk

Schnell explains. Why not use real produced sand Regina – In the back of the Petroleum Technology Re- instead of glass beads? The sand is not homogenous, search Centre building sits a pressure vessel, with numerous pipes and valves coming in and out. The vessel is bathed Schnell explains, and it has lots of in the sickly orange glow of sodium lights, and kept fines. “All those issues create a off the other side of a wall from the operator, who lot of problems,” he says. The extremely fine washed watches his monitors to see just what is hapand sifted granular glass beads pening inside. This vessel is special, because it is come from Ontario. The current box is 2.5 meant to deliver as close of an approximation as possible to how heavy oil m x 50 cm x 20 cm – acts in a real reservoir, hundreds of long and narrow. It varies from the old metres underground. It’s called the Solvent Va- box, which was pour Extraction Laboratory, more square. By having a longer or SVX Lab. Bart Schnell is one of box, you’re getthe operators whose job ting about the it is to keep an eye on same thickness as the those monitors. Inside the pres- real reservoirs sure vessel is a fibre- in Saskatch- It looks like an oversized R2D2, but inside That is a 3D model of a heavy oil reservoir. The glass box, covered ewan. with ports. The box means the data Solvent Vapour Extraction Laboratory at the Saskatchewan Research Council’s laborais filled with glass coming out is tory in the PTRC building in Regina offers beads, meant to not to scale, insights into the behaviour of heavy oils simulate the res- but rather the when using enhanced oil recovery. ervoir media. The real deal. T h o s e sand is saturated with authentic pro- ports coming off the box are thermocouple points. It allows duction liquids, to the computer to see a temperature cross section. “By monitoring the temperature of the thermocouples, we simulate what’s in can get a 3D picture of the solvent moving through the model, the reservoir. Desi Kniaz, a former lead tech with the Solvent Vapour Extraction “We use their dissolving into the model,” he says. Laboratory, shows a beaker of glass beads, used to simulate the solids in a heavy oil reservoir. oil from their wells,” ɸ Page C27

Please join us for an informative evening

Are you leaving your family with a $1,000,000 tax bill? Do you know the best way to transfer or maintain oil rights/revenue? Are you taking advantage of all strategies to minimize tax on oil revenue?

Pipestone Community Hall Thursday, May 28, 2009 7:30 p.m. We will discuss a wide variety of issues that you may or may not be aware of including but not limited to:

• Transferring of mineral rights • Corporate/non corporate structures • Taxation strategies on existing royalty income • How to deal with trapped corporate earnings We are fortunate to have keynote speaker Doug Markewich CLU, CH.F.C., TEP Over 20 years experience in this area. Tax & Estate Planner Sponsored by: Cameron Agencies, Melita, MB THIS IS AN RSVP EVENT. Please conﬁrm your attendance by calling 204-522-3285 or email ccagenci@mts.net by May 25, 2009 For more information call Greg Barrows or Murray Cameron at 204-522-3285

120 Main Street, Melita, MB R0M 1L0 Phone: 204-522-3285 84 Railway Avenue, Pierson, MB R0M 1S0 Phone: 204-634-2521

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Under all that pressure ɺ Page C26 The box is surrounded by water, pressured up to about 2,400 kPa, roughly 24 atmospheres of pressure. This represents the overburden pressure on the reservoir. However, the pressure inside the model is a little lower. There’s more pressure on the box from the outside so that the model stays sealed. Otherwise, the model will split up and leak. A typical test takes two to three months, with an average of 21 days of solvent injection. “We have to pack the model with sand. Then we inject water and get pore volumes. Then we inject the reservoir fluid – live oil, saturated with methane,” Schnell explains. “Then we depressurize the model. That represents primary production in the field, using pressure depletion to produce the oil. “Now we inject solvent – in this case, a combination of CO2 and propane. Butane is often used. “This process goes on for 21 days. After that we depressurize again, what they call blowdown.” At this point they see all the residual solvent left in the model. The thermocouple sensors show where the solvent is in the model, indicated by temperature. The temperature drops where there is a gaseous phase. They have the ability to monitor from home. Schnell notes, “We monitor 24 hours a day.” The model began its first run in July, 2005. The simulator has been in use for three and a half years, and was on its 16th run when Pipeline News visited in early April. The simulator is an asset of the Saskatchewan Research Council. PTRC and oil producers are the main clients. “We can do one off-off projects or collaborative projects,” says Kyle Worth, head of the Joint Implementation of Vapour Extraction ( JIVE) project with PTRC. “This is world class. It’s the biggest model in the world, Schnell says.

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• Fluid levels • Dynamometers • Pressure surveys (automated & manual) • Foam depressions • Equipment sales (new & used), rentals & repairs • Repairs done on all models including: Sonolog, Echometer, DX, etc. • Major parts and supplies in stock at all times

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C27

Bart Schnell stands at the operator station of the Solvent Vapour Extraction Laboratory. On screen one can watch the progression of solvent through the heavyoil soaked media.

C28

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Timeline chronology of Initiatives at the University of Regina The University of Regina is at the forefront of carbon dioxide capture and storage research. Here’s how it got there: • 1987: Province of Saskatchewan looks at CO2 capture. Pilot plant at Boundary Dam is installed. • 1991: Dr. Paitoon Tontiwachwuthikul joins the U of R. Early work begins, including the creation of lab facilities for CO2 capture. • 1997: Weyburn-Midale project. Work begins with PanCanadian (EnCana) on project, which includes a review of all CO2 sources including Saskatchewan sources. • 1999: Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC) is founded. Weyburn project is initiated. Discussion starts on the development of the International Test Centre for CO2 Capture (ITC). • 2000: PTRC building opens. • 2001: Dr. Malcolm Wilson joins the U of R. ITC facility opens. New pilot plant created and recommissioning begins at the Boundary Dam plant. • 2002: Regina hosts the design meeting for the IPCC Special Report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). • 2004: Phase I – Report on the Weyburn project is released. • 2005: IPCC Special Report is released. Phase II of the ITC work begins. • 2008: International Performance Assessment Centre for Geological Storage of CO2 (IPAC-CO2) is launched in November. –Courtesy the Oﬃce of Energy and Environment, University of Regina

Wavefront’s Powerwave makes a splash in California Edmonton – Wavefront Energy and Environmental Services Inc. and its Powerwave injection tool featured in the February Pipeline News is making a news splash on two fronts. The company has recently undergone a name change to Wavefront Technology Solutions Inc. in keeping with its enhanced oil recovery and groundwater restoration solutions technology using Powerwave. Wavefront Technology has also announced it is now applying Powerwave to boost water injection and revive oil production an offshore oil platform off the coast of California “This is a considerable opportunity for Wavefront as about one quarter of all oil is produced from offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, Persian Gulf, North Sea, and West Africa,” said Wavefront president and CEO Brett Davidson. “In 2008, the depletion rate of the world’s oil fields was greater than expected at 9.1 per cent over the previous year. With time and increased demand, oil production rates will see steeper declines, and all producers will look for the best pro-

duction practices to help them remain profitable. “Wavefront’s Powerwave is a highly effective method for improving oil recovery that will fill a dominant role in boosting production around the world.” Wavefront Technology based in Edmonton, specializes in designing and developing leadingedge techniques for oil well stimulation, improved oil recovery and environmental groundwater remediation.

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

C29

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C30

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

Figuring out the Career Opportunities alphabet soup Entering the world of research soon has you swimming in a pool of abbreviations and acronyms. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s almost as bad as the military. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a cheat sheet for ďŹ guring out the alphabet soup. ARC â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Alberta Research Council CCS â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Carbon Capture and Storage. Not to be confused with CSS â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Cyclic Steam Stimulation, a thermal recovery method for heavy oil CO2 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Carbon dioxide EOR â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Enhanced Oil Recovery GS â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Geological Storage H2S â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Hydrogen SulďŹ de IPAC-CO2 - International Performance Assessment Centre for Geological Storage of CO2

ITC - International Test Centre for CO2 Capture JIVE â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Joint Implementation Vapour Extraction OEE â&#x20AC;&#x201C; OďŹ&#x192;ce of Energy and Environment, University of Regina PTRC â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Petroleum Technology Research Centre SRC â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Saskatchewan Research Council STEPS â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Sustainable Technologies for Energy Production Systems (STEPS) U of R â&#x20AC;&#x201C; University of Regina U of S â&#x20AC;&#x201C; University of Saskatchewan VapEx â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Vapour Extraction

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PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

C31

PIPELINE NEWS Saskatchewanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Petroleum Monthly

Aluminum Tankers, Backhoes, Boilers, Braking g Systems, y Casing g Elevators, Casing g Scrapers, p Casing g Slips, p Cement & Acid Equipment, q p Cement Bulk Trailers, Tr rai aile ile lers r , Cement rs Ceme Ce meent nt Mixers, Mix M ix xer ers, rs, s, Cement Cem C emen em entt Pumps, en Puump ps, s, Cement Cem e en nt Storage, S or St orag ag ge, e, Centrifugal Cen entr t if ifuug ugal a Pump, Pum mp, p Centrifugal Cen e tr t iffug ugal a Pumps, al Pum P u ps um p , Chemical Chem Ch e iccall Pumps, em Pum mps p , Choke C ok Ch o e Manifolds, Maani nifo f ld fo ldss, s, Closing C Clo lo osiing Units, Uniits ts, s, Coiled Tubing Unit Parts, Coiled Tubing Units, Control Systems, Crane Trucks, Cranes, Crown Blocks, Traveling Blocks, Dehydrators, Witch, C oilled T ubin ng Un U nit it P arts, Co arts oil iled ed Tub T ubin ub iin ng U nitts, s, C onntr trol o S ysteemss, Cran ys C ran ne Truc T rucks ks, Cr ranes, C Cr row wn Bl Bloc ocks ks,, Tr T av vel eliin ing Bl ing Bloc ocks ks, De ehy h dr drat attoorrs, Ditch Dit D itch ch hW itch h, Double Elevators, Do oub ubl ble le Drum Dru D ruum Workover rum Work Wo rkov kovver er Rigs, Ri Rig igs, Double igs Dou D ouble ou blle Phase, Phas Ph has asee, Double Dou D ubl ble Studded ble Stud Stud St udd dde ded Adaptors, ded Ad pto Adap Ad tors tors rs, Dozers, D ze Do zers rs, rs s, Drawworks Draw Draw Dr awwo w rk wo rkss & Substructures, Subs Sub Su bstr bst truc truc ucttu ture ture ress, Drift Dri rif ift ft Indicators, Ind Ind ndic icat ic ator at orss, Drill or Dri rill illl Collar Col oll lla lar El lar Elev levat ator tor ors rs, Drill Pipe, Drill Pipe Elevators, Drill Pipe Elevators Slips Combinations, Spinners, Drill Collar Slips, Drill Collars, D rill ri ll P ip pe,, D Dri rill ll Pip P ip pe Elev ev vat ator o s, D or rill Pip ri ip pe El E evat ev a or orss Slip ps Co C mbinat mb attio ions ns,, Dr Drilll Pi Pipe pe Spi S p nn pi nners, Drilling Choke Control Components, Drilling Rigs, Dual Drilling Control Consoles, Duplex Pumps, Electric Motor Drive, Farm Systems, Drilling Components tss, Dr ril illli ling R ling igs, ig s, D uaal Dril D rillli lingg C ling Con onntrol trooll C onso ons sole les, D les uplex up leex Pu ump ps, s, E leect ctriic Moto ctri M Mo oto or Dr D Driv riiv ve, F arm Tractors , Fiberglass Tanks, ar Lowboys, Fluid Cleaners, Front End Loaders, Gas Processing Plants, Gate Valves Flat Bottom Junk Mill, Flatbed Flatbeed aand ndd L Lo owbo boyys, F luuid / Mu Mud Cle Mud eaners ea ners ne rs,, Fr F ron o t En E nd Loa L Lo oaderss, G a P as Pr roceessi ro ssing Pl P lan ants tss, Ga ate te V alves for Blowout Preventers, Glycol Pumps, H2S Safety Valves, Handling Tools, Hard Hats, Heater Treaters, High Pressure Gauges, Gloves, Glycol Pumps, Pumpps ps, Gl G ycol yc ol P umpps um ps, H ps, 2S Sa S afe fety ty V Va alve alve al ves, s H s, and an ndl dlin dlin ng To ools, H ard Hats Ha ats t , He H eat ater er T reeat a er erss,, H Hi igh P ig Pr ressure Hoses, High Pressure Pressure Valves Fittings, Highway Tractors, Hydraulic AmpliĂ&#x20AC; 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C32

PIPELINE NEWS May 2009

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